The date that matters most is November 20, not December 4. Microsoft's guidance is to export any Project usage data you want to keep before November 20, 2026, if you rely on this report. After December 4, the history is gone from the portal. That leaves roughly two weeks from publication of the notice to the export cutoff.
What's being retired
The report sits in a familiar place. Microsoft says it is retiring the Project usage report (Project activity) from Reports > Usage in the Microsoft 365 admin center. Right now, the report shows how many users are active in the Project desktop client, Project Online, and Project for the web. Because Project Online and Project for the web have been retired, the Project usage report is also being retired.
Neowin also reported the effect on historical data: from December 4, 2026, it will be unavailable in the M365 admin center, and its historical data will no longer be accessible there. Note the word "there." Microsoft is not promising that the data survives somewhere else. If your organization never exports it, assume you won't be able to get that history back from the admin center.
Summary: One report goes away on December 4. Its data should be exported by November 20.
What's not changing
Any notice with "Project" and "retirement" in it tends to alarm people, so here are the limits. Microsoft says the change applies only to the Project usage report. The Project desktop client will remain supported under its published lifecycle. Its features, support, and project files are not affected.
- Project desktop client: still supported. Features and files are unaffected.
- Planner reporting: Planner usage data will continue to be available through the Planner usage report.
- Who is affected: administrators who use the Project usage report in the Microsoft 365 admin center. End users won't see anything different.
Your schedulers can keep working in Project desktop. The change only affects the dashboard admins used to track their activity.
Why now: the end of Project's cloud products
This change follows Microsoft's broader exit from its older cloud project-management services. Project Online had a firm end date. In a migration guide, Epicflow notes that Microsoft Project Online is retiring on September 30, 2026. Epicflow's timeline also lists the earlier milestones: an end of sale for Project Online-only SKUs for new customers on October 1, 2025, and the blocking of new Project Web App site creation on April 1, 2026.
Project for the web was retired too, and its users were steered toward Planner. Epicflow warns that the two are easy to confuse: users of Project for the Web are being redirected into Planner, but Project for the Web and Project Online are not the same product.
Two of the three products the report tracked are now gone, so a combined report makes little sense. A dashboard mostly showing zeros for retired services isn't worth keeping. The catch is that the report also counted Project desktop users, and Microsoft hasn't said where that telemetry will live from now on. The Planner report won't show it, because Planner is a different product.
Summary: The report is being removed because the cloud services it tracked have been retired. Its desktop-client figures don't appear to have an announced replacement.
How to export the data before November 20
Microsoft Learn still documents the Project Activity report, which helps if you've never opened it. The page describes the report's purpose as answering who is actively using Project, which client they are using (web or desktop), and how much project and task activity is happening.
Based on that documentation, the steps are:
- Sign in to the Microsoft 365 admin center with a role that can view usage reports.
- In the navigation menu, select Reports. If you don't see Reports, select Show all, and then select Reports.
- Select Usage.
- On the Usage page, under Reports, select Project.
- Choose your time window. Microsoft says use the report timeline to analyze usage over 7, 30, 90, or 180 days.
- To export the report data into an Excel .csv file, select Export. This action exports the usage data of all users and enables you to do simple sorting, filtering, and searching for further analysis.
Practical tips (general admin practice, not Microsoft guidance):
- Set the longest period before exporting. The documented maximum is 180 days. Data older than that probably can't be retrieved through this report anyway, so export now rather than at the deadline.
- Use the export instead of screenshots. The CSV has per-user detail. Screenshots of charts won't help much in a licensing review.
- Check whether names are hidden. If your tenant conceals user, group and site names in reports, the export will contain anonymized identifiers. Decide whether that's acceptable for your records before November 20, because you won't get a second export.
- Store the file under your data-retention rules. It contains user identities and activity data, so treat it like other personnel-adjacent records.
Summary: Go to Reports > Usage > Project, set the longest timeline, select Export, and store the CSV securely before November 20.
Moving to the Planner usage report
Microsoft's suggested alternative is to use the Planner usage report in the Microsoft 365 admin center to view Planner and Planner premium activity. Before you switch your dashboards over, here is what that report measures, according to Microsoft Learn's Planner documentation:
| Aspect | Planner usage report |
|---|---|
| Location | Reports > Usage > Planner |
| Coverage | Basic and premium Planner plans. Planner Agent activity is in the Copilot Agents report |
| Time periods | Past 7, 28, 90, and 180 days |
| "Active" means | At least one intentional user action that day. Background sync, service notifications and service-account actions don't count |
| Surfaces measured | Planner on the web, Teams, Outlook, Loop and the Planner mobile apps |
| Export | CSV. With more than 2,000 users, sort and filter in the exported file |
Microsoft Learn also notes that the details table lists every user active in the past 180 days whatever period you select. The period filter only changes the Active days column, so a user can appear with zero active days. If someone hands you a Planner export with a list full of zeros, that's why.
This isn't a like-for-like replacement. The Project report counted desktop, Project Online and Project for the web users. The Planner report counts Planner activity only. If you're tracking how many Project desktop licenses are actually in use, the Planner report won't tell you. Don't splice the two datasets into one trend line and call it continuous. They measure different products with different definitions of "active."
Tenant scope and timing
The notice MC1539001 lists general availability for Worldwide and GCC tenants, with rollout starting and finishing in early December 2026. GCC High and DoD aren't mentioned. Neowin also said it's unclear whether or how those clouds are affected. Admins in those environments should check their own tenant's Message Center and not assume anything.
The notice is tagged action-required by December 4, but don't let that date mislead you. The recommended export cutoff is November 20, and that's the one to plan around.
Part of a broader reporting clean-up
This is one of several recent changes to Microsoft 365 reporting. For example, Windows Report noted that Microsoft delayed the retirement of the Outlook for Windows Usage Report in the Exchange admin center, with that work expected to begin in early November and finish by late November 2026. The difference is that the Outlook data is moving into the Microsoft 365 admin center. The Project report is simply being removed, with no direct successor for its desktop numbers.
The pattern is consistent: Microsoft is consolidating reporting in the Microsoft 365 admin center and dropping reports for retired products. That's sensible housekeeping, but deadlines like this one are easy to miss. Organizations that have already moved off Project Online may never look at this report and won't notice it's gone. Organizations still sorting out post-migration licensing, and checking who still needs a Project desktop seat, may need that history. A few minutes on the export now is cheaper than rebuilding the data later.
Admin checklist
- By November 20, 2026: Export the Project usage report (Reports > Usage > Project > Export), using the longest timeline available.
- Before December 4, 2026: Update runbooks, license-review procedures and internal documentation that mention the Project usage report. Microsoft lists this explicitly: update internal documentation or processes that refer to the Project usage report.
- From now on: Use Reports > Usage > Planner for Planner and Planner premium activity. Keep in mind that it doesn't track Project desktop.
- GCC High/DoD: Check your own Message Center, because MC1539001 lists only Worldwide and GCC.
- No action needed: Project desktop installations, project files and support status.
The Project desktop client isn't affected. Only its usage history in the admin center is being removed, so export anything you need before November 20.