Power Framework PPM does not provide a task management or scheduling tool of its own. There would be little value in doing so as these already exist in the Microsoft platform.
Instead the application integrates with planning and work management tools like Microsoft Planner, Project Online or Azure DevOps, as well as 3rd party tools like Jira. In Power Framework PPM, these are referred to as 'Project Tool'.
Integration Concept
Choosing the Project Tool
The Project Tool is a field in the project form. It allows you to pick the tool you wish to use for the project from a list (note that this list will show just the Project Tools available in your organisation, so is likely to show just one or two as a result of the way the application is configured for you):
Once saved, the integration process will provision the project in the connected tool and start bringing back information from it.
Navigating to the Project Tool
The Schedule URL is shown on the project Summary screen – click the globe icon next to the URL to navigate to the project schedule.
Milestone Integration
Power Framework allows you to maintain a list of milestones for your project. When a project is connected to an external project tool, then key events in the external schedule will be used to create milestones automatically in Power Framework and keep those in sync.
Below shows the example of the project plan in Microsoft Planner (rebranded from 'Project for the Web' in 2024). Milestones in the plan create Milestone records in Power Framework and keep updating milestone dates whenever the plan is rescheduled.
What if No External Project Tool is Connected
You can choose ‘NA’ in the Project Tool field, in which case no external project tool is used for the respective Project. Simply maintain details of project dates and events in the Milestone register, which will now not be written from an external plan.