Project Online Professional is the subscription for the Office 365 cloud hosted version of Project Server and includes the traditional Project desktop tool, called Project Online Desktop Client. With this subscription, project managers are able to connect Project Online Desktop Client to the server environment to create and manage project plans. This subscription also enables those project managers and other managers that typically don’t use Project Online Desktop Client to access to the Project Online server environment through any mainstream browser or device app to create and manage project plans, collaborate on documents/issues/risks, assign resources to projects & tasks, see business intelligence reports and more.
Project Online Essentials is the subscription for project team members. It allows those resources to access the Project Online server environment through any mainstream browser or device app to see and update status on tasks, collaborate on documents/issues/risks & more.
Project Online Premium is for users that need specific advanced capabilities:
- Perform Portfolio selection and optimization
- Fulfill a resource request using Resource Engagements
- Use either the Out-of-the-box portfolio dashboards or the Power BI content pack published by Microsoft
- Create or edit Project Detail Pages
For a full description of the Project Online service, see https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/project-online-service-description.aspx.
In summary:
- Project Managers generally need Project Online Professional
- Portfolio Managers, Resource Managers, and Senior Managers that want Microsoft provided BI reports need Project Online Premium
- Project team members need Project Essentials
