Power BI is a powerful controlling tool for the entire organization. This includes strategy controlling, portfolio controlling, and project controlling, among other areas.
Effective project controlling ensures that project goals are achieved and that the course of the project stays under control. Key components of project controlling are target-actual comparisons and variance analyses to assess consequences and propose corrective measures. The focus is, among other things, on which resources a project requires and whether project goals and project costs are being met.
With Microsoft Power BI and Microsoft Power BI Paginated Reports, you keep the entire project team up to date. The reports are easy to use. With Power BI, even end users can easily create their own ad hoc analyses. This gives project managers, executives, the project office, and project controllers in particular the ability to answer all questions about ongoing projects and the resources deployed — without IT support.
To get you started, Microsoft provides free Power BI report templates for project portfolio controlling, project controlling, and resource controlling. They are designed for Microsoft Project Online and for Microsoft Planner Premium, which Microsoft's guide still lists under its former name, Project for the web. Since Project Online will be retired on September 30, 2026, the question arises of how data from Microsoft Project can continue to be visualized. But first, let's look at the free Power BI reports from Microsoft.
For users of Microsoft Project Online and Planner Premium, Microsoft offers free templates for project controlling. They include a whole series of useful reports that give you an immediate start into project controlling with Power BI. As an example, the screenshot shows the Portfolio Dashboard report.
You can also customize Microsoft's report templates yourself or build entirely independent reports on the data from Microsoft Project Online or Planner Premium. For this, you can use Power BI Desktop, for example.
Below is an example report for project controlling, the resource histogram. The upper half shows resource utilization and capacity grouped by project, and the lower half grouped by resource.
You can use Power BI reports in any modern web browser, in Microsoft Teams, and on mobile devices in the Power BI app for Android and iPhone or iPad.
But how can you build a comprehensive controlling solution beyond that — at the strategy, portfolio, program, project, and resource level with Power BI and Fabric — that visualizes project data from Microsoft Project, Microsoft Planner Basic plans and Microsoft Planner Premium plans, Azure DevOps, and Jira, and is independent of the discontinued Project Online?
For this, Altus delivers ready-made, immediately usable reports that, through the integration of Altus with Microsoft Project, Microsoft Planner Basic plans and Microsoft Planner Premium plans, Azure DevOps, and Jira, enable unified controlling. Below is a selection of the included reports:
Overview of the value contribution of all projects to the strategic goals, organized by strategic themes.
The Challenge Dashboard displays the challenges, or problem spaces, that the company wants to solve, organized by strategic goals. The strategic goals themselves are bundled into themes
Overview of all ideas for mastering the defined challenges in the best possible way.
Overview of submitted project proposals
Funnel of new project proposals and projects, displayed by project lifecycle, phase, and approval stage
Overall view of all portfolios, including the IT portfolio (projects and agile initiatives)
Program overview for cost controlling and schedule controlling with Power BI
Overview of all ongoing projects from Microsoft Project, Planner Basic, Planner Premium, Azure Boards, Azure DevOps, and Jira, including KPIs. These are integrated by Altus out of the box and can be displayed in a single overview.
Overview of all milestones, e.g. filtered by department or project manager
An overview of your personal work backlog containing all tasks from Microsoft Project, Microsoft Planner, Microsoft Planner Premium, Azure DevOps, and Atlassian Jira. In addition, there are complementary overviews of all deliverables, issues, risks, decisions, change requests, and lessons learned.
Microsoft Planner Basic plans store their data in the Planner app of Microsoft 365 and do not provide a data source for building Power BI reports by default. Planner Premium plans store their data in Dataverse. Dataverse can easily be used as a data source for Power BI. With Altus, you can analyze the data from Planner Basic and Planner Premium together.
Power BI gives you the option to choose from a wide range of connectors and to connect additional data sources from your organization without deep programming experience.
Databases such as SQL Server, Oracle databases, or SAP HANA databases can be connected.
Connectors for online services such as Salesforce or Google Analytics are also available.
This is just a selection of the connectors available in Power BI that enable you to access your data without major programming skills.
| Criterion | Microsoft report templates | Custom Power BI reports | Altus PPM with Power BI reports |
|---|---|---|---|
| Data sources | Project Online (until September 30, 2026), Planner Premium via Dataverse | Any source with a Power BI connector, e.g. Dataverse, SQL Server, SharePoint; Jira via third-party apps | Microsoft Project, Planner Basic and Premium, Azure DevOps, Jira via the Altus integration |
| Effort to first report | Low: open the template in Power BI Desktop and connect | High: build the data model, KPIs, and reports yourself | Low: reports are included |
| Controlling levels | Portfolio, project, resources | Freely configurable | Strategy, innovation, portfolio, program, project, personal tasks |
| Planner Basic | Not covered | Only via Microsoft Graph API or export | Covered |
| Licensing | Power BI Pro or Premium Per User, plus Planner or Project license | Power BI Pro or Premium Per User, Fabric capacity if needed | Separate Altus subscription in addition to Microsoft licenses |
Which Power BI license does the PMO need for project reports?
Anyone who creates and shares reports needs Power BI Pro or Premium Per User. Power BI Pro is included in Microsoft 365 E5. According to Microsoft, paginated reports can already be published with Pro; readers without their own license need a capacity of F64 or higher.
Do the Microsoft templates keep working after Project Online ends?
Not for Project Online data: Project Online will be retired on September 30, 2026. The Planner Premium template reads from Dataverse and is not affected.
Can I analyze Planner Basic plans with Power BI?
Not directly. There is no Power BI connector for Planner Basic; the data is only accessible through the Microsoft Graph API or an export. Altus PPM analyzes Planner Basic and Planner Premium together.
How do I connect Jira and Tempo to Power BI?
Microsoft does not offer its own Jira connector in Power BI. Tempo provides the Power BI Connector for Jira, a Marketplace app that transfers Jira and Tempo data to Power BI. Altus PPM connects Jira through its own integration.
Templates and connectors are quick to set up; meaningful controlling is not. Many PMOs lack consistent KPIs, a shared data model across Microsoft Project, Planner, Azure DevOps, and Jira, and clear ownership of data quality. With the end of Project Online, existing reports also disappear.
Holert designs and implements project controlling with Power BI for PMOs and IT PMOs — from data integration and the data model to the finished report package and its operation. The foundation is Microsoft 365, Dataverse, Altus PPM, Projectum xPM, and Jira, with a methodological framework drawn from PMI and SAFe practice. Holert has specialized in project and portfolio management for more than 20 years and has been implementing Altus PPM and Projectum xPM since 2019 for customers such as Rohde & Schwarz, KUKA, LAPP, and KWS. Learn more about Power BI Governance & Managed Services and our PMO customer references.
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