Microsoft is now working to close that gap. According to Microsoft's AI at Work roadmap under ID 576297, a new capability titled Dynamics 365 Project Operations: Import task - Assign generic resources to task is currently in development. Targeted for General Availability in March 2027 across Web platforms in Worldwide (Standard Multi-Tenant) and Government Community Cloud (GCC) environments, the update will give project managers explicit control over how resource assignments behave when importing tasks from one project into another.
The Two-Path Import Control
At the core of roadmap item 576297 is a straightforward choice presented during each task import operation. Rather than forcing a single default behavior, Dynamics 365 Project Operations will allow project managers to select between two distinct assignment-handling modes:
- Do not import team members: Every imported task strips out its prior assignment data. You get the clean task structure, but no staffing records travel with it.
- Use a generic placeholder: For each assignment on an imported task, the system creates and assigns a generic resource in the destination project, mirroring the behavior already used by the platform's full Copy Project feature.
- Preserve unassigned states: Any source tasks that carried no resource assignments in the original project continue to import without resources attached.
Why does a simple toggle between stripping team members and generating placeholders matter so much in day-to-day enterprise resource planning? Because in Dynamics 365 Project Operations, a task schedule is rarely just a to-do list; it is the foundation of financial estimation, capacity forecasting, and resource requisition.
Selective Task Import vs. Full Project Copy
To appreciate what this roadmap update actually solves, it helps to look at how Microsoft Learn documents the existing project reuse tools in Dynamics 365 Project Operations. Historically, project managers who wanted to avoid typing tasks manually into the task grid or writing custom schedule API calls leaned on the Copy project action.
While Copy project is effective for cloning a standardized template from top to bottom, Microsoft's 2025 Release Wave 2 documentation notes two major operational drawbacks: it copies the entire project—including unwanted tasks, estimates, checklists, and buckets—and it cannot combine tasks from multiple source projects into a single destination Work Breakdown Structure (WBS). Furthermore, Microsoft Learn's Copy project documentation points out that full project copying is a long-running operation that locks the target project page for editing until the process finishes.
To provide a lighter, modular alternative, Microsoft introduced the Import Tasks button on the project ribbon. Using the side-pane project picker, a manager can open a target project, browse one or more existing projects, select only the relevant tasks, and click Add to append them directly to the target project's WBS (adhering to documented per-project task limits).
| Capability | Full Copy Project | Selective Import Tasks (With Planned Update) |
|---|---|---|
| Scope of Transfer | Entire project (properties, WBS, estimates, checklists, buckets) | Selected tasks from one or more source projects appended to target WBS |
| Multi-Project Merging | Not supported | Supported across multiple accessible source projects |
| Resource Handling | Maintains generic resources; converts named resources to generic team members | User choice per import: strip assignments or create a generic placeholder per assignment |
| Unassigned Tasks | Imported without assignments | Continue to be imported without resources |
Section Summary: Selective task importing freed project managers from cloning entire project records just to reuse a single phase, and roadmap ID 576297 brings Copy project's staffing-placeholder logic into that modular workflow.
How Generic Resources Drive Staffing in Project Operations
If you are newer to Microsoft's enterprise project suite, the phrase "generic resource" might sound like database filler. In practice, generic resources are the connective tissue between early-stage project planning and live resource management.
As documented on Microsoft Learn, a resource assignment in Project Operations directly associates a project team member with a leaf-node task. In the early planning stages, a project manager rarely knows whether a specific developer or consultant will be free six months down the road. Instead of booking a named individual, the manager assigns a generic resource—a placeholder team member defined by a role (such as "Program Manager" or "Senior Architect") rather than a real person's user account.
Once generic resources are assigned to tasks on the schedule grid, the project manager can select those placeholders on the Team tab and click Generate Requirement. That action translates the task assignments and hours into a formal Resource Requirement record, where managers can specify required skills, preferred resources, and allocation methods before either booking a person directly or submitting a formal request to a Resource Manager. When a named employee is finally booked to fulfill that requirement, Project Operations automatically removes the generic placeholder from the team and transfers its task assignments to the real team member.
Without the upcoming roadmap feature, importing a 30-task implementation phase into an active project meant losing that role-level scaffolding. Even if the tasks arrived intact, someone still had to open the resource selector under the Assigned to column, spin up Quick Create panels for generic project team members, and re-link the staffing plan by hand. Allowing the import engine to automatically generate and assign a generic placeholder for each task assignment keeps the staffing blueprint connected to the task structure from the moment it lands in the target WBS.
Section Summary: Generic resources act as role-based staffing blueprints that convert directly into bookable Resource Requirements, making their preservation during task imports a major time-saver for project managers.
Important Caveats and Architectural Realities
As a veteran of Microsoft enterprise rollouts, I always advise IT administrators and PMO leads to read between the lines of a roadmap entry—and to respect what is not yet promised in the technical documentation.
First, examine how Microsoft Learn describes the existing Copy project resource conversion, which the roadmap explicitly cites as its behavioral model ("just like copy project functionality"). When Copy project converts named resources into generic team members in a WBS, Microsoft Learn notes a critical scheduling side effect: if the original named resources had different working hours than the newly created generic resource calendar, the schedule is recalculated and task durations might change. Project managers testing the new task import placeholder option once it ships should watch their imported task durations closely to see if similar calendar-driven recalculations occur when pulling tasks that were previously staffed by named individuals.
Second, the roadmap description states that the option will "create and assign a generic resource for each assignment in the imported task." Until Microsoft publishes the updated prerelease or general availability documentation on Microsoft Learn, a few record-level questions remain open:
- Will importing ten tasks that were assigned to the same person or role in the source project generate ten separate generic team member records, or consolidate them cleanly onto the target project's Team grid?
- Which specific role attributes or custom fields transfer onto the newly created generic placeholder during a selective task import?
Finally, keep the timeline in perspective. Roadmap ID 576297 is currently listed as In development with an estimated General Availability window of March 2027 for Web users in Worldwide Standard Multi-Tenant and GCC clouds. As Microsoft's AI at Work roadmap disclaimer notes, all dates and descriptions are estimates subject to change, postponement, or cancellation before release.
Practical Preparation for PMO and Dynamics 365 Admins
While March 2027 gives organizations plenty of runway, teams running Dynamics 365 Project Operations can take advantage of the existing selective task import tools today while preparing their templates for the future update:
- Audit your "golden" source projects: If your organization uses reference projects as modular libraries for importing tasks, review how tasks are staffed in those projects today. Standardizing role definitions on your reference tasks will make it much easier to verify how placeholders map once the feature arrives.
- Verify Feature Control Settings: Selective task importing requires the capability to be enabled in your environment's feature control settings so the Import Tasks button appears on the project ribbon.
- Train PMs on Requirement Regeneration: Remind project managers that whenever generic resources are assigned to additional tasks—whether manually today or via bulk task import in the future—they should check the Team grid and click Generate Requirement to ensure required hours stay balanced against task assignments.
By letting project managers decide on the fly whether they want a bare-bones task list or a fully placeholder-staffed work breakdown structure, Microsoft is smoothing out one of the most repetitive friction points in Dynamics 365 Project Operations. It may not have the flashy marketing of an autonomous AI agent, but for the folks actually keeping enterprise schedules on track, not having to rebuild resource assignments from scratch is the kind of practical engineering that pays dividends every single week.