Overview
Project Operations ties your project lifecycle, from estimate and resourcing through milestone billing, to Business Central, so you can track budget versus actual on every job in real time instead of chasing status across Planner files and spreadsheets.
We build it around your delivery model: your project phases, your billing milestones, and your cost tracking, so operations leaders finally have live visibility into throughput and margin.
How We Work
Discovery and design
We map your project lifecycle, billing models, and approval flows, then design templates that match how your work really runs.
Implementation
We configure projects, resourcing, and billing, connect the financials, and train project managers and field staff on their views.
Run and improve
We support the platform in production and refine templates and reports as your project mix evolves.
What's Included
Project templates
Standard project structures built from your actual delivery lifecycle.
Cost and budget tracking
Real-time budget-versus-actual on every project, with crew tracking by named individual.
Milestone billing
Milestone, percentage-of-completion, and end-of-project billing tied to your financials.
Resourcing
Plan and assign people to projects with visibility into capacity.
Operational dashboards
Live throughput and status, replacing scattered Planner files and trackers.
Role-based security
Field staff manage projects and invoice without seeing the books.
Implementation Options
Three ways to start, depending on how much certainty you want before you commit. Estimates and rates are quoted in your proposal.
T&M Implementation
- The full implementation on time and materials, billed to actual hours as consumed
- A written estimate up front, revisited at every phase gate
- Design and build run in parallel: the blueprint evolves while early phases are already being delivered
- Scope stays flexible, with changes approved through a written change order
- Simpler footprints with a clear picture of their requirements
- Teams comfortable steering scope as the work unfolds
Fixed-Fee Discovery & Design
- The first phase of a full implementation, run as a standalone engagement with its own deliverables (we call it Phase 0)
- Current state documented, future state designed, and the implementation blueprint delivered
- A fixed-fee implementation proposal, priced against confirmed scope
- Deliverables are platform-agnostic, not tied to Microsoft or to us, and detailed enough for any qualified partner to quote a fixed fee
- The fee is credited in full toward the implementation if you proceed with us within three months
- Complex or unclear scope, where guessing is expensive
- Boards and leadership teams that prefer the certainty of a detailed roadmap and fixed-fee scope before implementation kicks off
Fixed-Fee Implementation
- Follows a completed Discovery & Design engagement
- The implementation at a fixed price, quoted against the scope confirmed in discovery and design
- Milestone billing tied to deliverables you can verify
- Change orders only when the scope itself changes
- Budget certainty required before kickoff
- Regulated or board-governed purchases
Support & Training Options
Go-live is the start of the relationship, and how much of it you hand to us is your call. Flat-fee plans run on a rolling 90-day commitment; T&M support carries no commitment.
T&M support & training
- Support billed hourly, as you need it, with no monthly fee
- Escalation straight to the team that built your system, including your solution architect
- Training sessions on request: new hires, refreshers, or a deep dive on one module
- Minor configuration changes scoped in writing before work starts
- Larger teams with dedicated in-house Dynamics resources
- Staff comfortable with a self-service approach
- Teams looking for escalation support and occasional training
Flat-fee Project Operations support & training
- Reduced professional services rates for your implementation
- SLA-backed unlimited support during business hours
- Minor modifications to existing configurations
- Training for new project managers and billers as the team grows
- Training on new Microsoft wave releases: updates ship twice a year, announced in advance, and we prep your team before each one lands
- Smaller teams without dedicated in-house Dynamics resources
- Leadership that prefers flat-fee simplicity and wants staff to ask for help without watching a meter
- Teams with predictable growth plans and support needs
Fully managed Dynamics & IT support
Everything in the flat-fee Project Operations support & training option, plus managed IT services:
- Our lowest professional services rates for your implementation, as part of a holistic ongoing engagement
- Microsoft 365 administration
- Endpoint monitoring, patching, and security configuration
- Security monitoring, threat response, and email security
- IT vendor and license management
- vCIO strategic advisory
- Helpdesk and level 1, 2, and 3 support for staff
- SLA on system-blocking issues
- Teams without dedicated in-house Dynamics and IT support staff
- Companies that prefer a single outside partner across their entire IT footprint, from applications through general IT operations
Who This Is For, and Who It Is Not
A strong fit if
- You run project or job-based work, and margin only becomes visible after the job closes.
- Estimates, schedules, timesheets, and invoices live in separate files that someone reconciles by hand.
- You bill on milestones, percentage of completion, or time and materials, and the billing schedule is tracked outside your financials.
- You run Business Central, or are implementing it, and want project accounting on the same ledger.
- Field and delivery staff need to update job status and time without seeing the books.
A poor fit if
- Your projects are short, uniform, and billed as one flat fee on delivery. Project accounting adds structure you would not use.
- What you need is scheduling and task management. Planner or Project for the web covers that at a fraction of the weight.
- Your financials are staying on a system that will not connect. Most of the value here comes from the link back to the ledger.
Frequently Asked Questions
All questionsWhat is Dynamics 365 Project Operations?
Project Operations is Microsoft's system for businesses that sell projects. Quoting, staffing, time tracking, and billing live in one flow, so a project's real margin is visible while you can still do something about it.
How much does Project Operations cost?
Licensing is per user, per month, on an annual commitment, covering the people who quote, staff, track time against, and bill projects. There is one full-user plan rather than a tier ladder, so the sizing question is who genuinely works in the system: usually project managers, resourcing, and finance, rather than everyone who touches a project. Copilot Credits for the prebuilt time, expense, and approval agents are billed separately. Microsoft publishes current rates on the Project Operations pricing page.
How is this different from our project spreadsheets and PM tools?
Most project businesses run a quoting spreadsheet, a project tool, a timesheet app, and an invoicing system that never quite agree. Project Operations replaces the handoffs between them, which is exactly where hours go unbilled and margin leaks.
Who is Project Operations for, and who is it not?
Services firms that live and die by utilization and project margin: engineering, consulting, field services, agencies. It is especially strong when projects run through Business Central for accounting. If your projects are short, uniform, and priced flat, a lighter project tool is cheaper and faster to run; this platform earns its keep when projects are big enough to leak.
What does an implementation cost, and when do we find out?
Early, on purpose. After discovery we put a ballpark scope and budget in front of you, with no signature expected, so both sides know the shape of the project early. After design, pricing becomes a fixed scope. We present two structures side by side, a straight hourly project and the same scope amortized monthly with support included, so you can show leadership the difference and defend the choice.
What happens after go-live?
Thirty days of hypercare are built into every implementation, then you move to the support option you chose. Expect a response within a couple of hours, usually a live screen share, and sessions that double as training. Heavy investment in training and cutover means post-go-live questions skew toward how-do-I rather than break-fix.
What are these add-ons (ISVs) you keep mentioning?
Business Central covers finance, inventory, and operations out of the box. Industry-specific needs, like catch weight for food distribution, FDA-compliant electronic signatures, or distributor EDI, are covered by vetted add-on products built for Business Central. We name them during design, quote their licensing before you sign anything, and remain your single point of contact. You never call Microsoft or the add-on vendor.
How do you handle training?
Role-based and timed close to go-live so it sticks: finance, operations, and quality each learn their own workflows, in your system with your data. After go-live, support sessions run as live screen shares that double as training, and flat-fee plans include training for new hires and on each Microsoft release wave.
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