Import from MS Project

Move a plan from MS Project or Oracle Primavera P6 into Flow Relay without rebuilding it: the outline, durations, dependencies, constraints, calendars, assignments, baselines and custom fields come across, and the scheduler recomputes the dates on the way in. Spreadsheet exports from Planner, Asana, Smartsheet, Excel or any tool that writes a CSV file work too.

Importing and exporting are included from the Starter plan. Only project owners and managers can import.

Flow Relay reads the MS Project XML format (MSPDI), the open format every version of Project writes.

1. Open the plan in Project desktop.
2. Choose File > Save As, set the file type to XML Format (*.xml) and save.

A plan kept in Project Online is exported the same way: open it in Project desktop, then save it as XML. A .mpp file is not read directly – open it in Project desktop and save it as XML first.

Flow Relay natively reads Primavera P6 .xer files with their WBS hierarchy, activities, milestones, durations, dependencies (FS, SS, FF, SF with lag), calendars, resource assignments and User Defined Fields (UDF).

1. In Primavera P6, choose File > Export, select Primavera PM - (XER), and export the project.
2. In Flow Relay, choose Import a plan and pick the .xer file.
3. Review the preview and apply the plan.

1. Open the project and go to the plan workspace.
2. Choose Import a plan in the toolbar and pick the .xml, .xer or .csv file (50 MB at most).
3. Flow Relay reads the file and shows a preview: how many tasks, summaries, milestones and dependencies it found, the first tasks of the outline and a Worth knowing list of anything it could not carry over.
4. Under People in the file, each resource of the file is matched to a project member by email address, then by name. Change a match or pick Do not assign. Only people who can already see the project can be assigned; unmatched work stays unassigned.
5. If the plan already has items, choose whether to add the imported tasks after them or to replace them.
6. Leave Use the file's calendar, working hours and project start on to take the working week, holidays, hours per day and project start from the file. Turn it off to keep the plan settings and reschedule the imported tasks on them.
7. Choose Import, which names how many tasks will be created.

The import runs on the server and takes up to a minute for large plans. When it is done Flow Relay compares its own schedule with the dates MS Project saved in the file and tells you how many automatically scheduled tasks landed on the same dates. A difference usually points at a feature from the list below.

Some features are imported in part and reported under Worth knowing:

• Split tasks become one continuous bar.
• Formulas of custom fields are not imported; the values MS Project computed are kept.
• Recurring tasks come in as a summary with its occurrences. A recurring calendar exception comes in for its first occurrence.
• Links to other projects are skipped.
• Cost and material resources are not imported yet; work resources are.

A CSV file needs a header row and one task per row. Flow Relay recognizes the usual column names – Name or Task name, Duration, Start, Finish or Due date, Predecessors, % Complete, Status, Assigned to, Outline level or WBS, Notes, Milestone, Deadline, Priority – and shows the mapping in the preview so you can fix any column it guessed wrong. Commas, semicolons and tabs are all accepted as separators.

• Outline: an Outline level column (1, 2, 3...) or a WBS column (1.2.3) builds the tree. Without either, every task is at the top level.
• Durations: 4h, 3d, 2w, 3ed or a plain number of days.
• Dates: 2026-10-05, or a day-month or month-day date such as 05/10/2026. The preview guesses the order from the file; change it under Dates are written when the guess is wrong.
• Predecessors: row numbers or the values of an ID column, with an optional link type and lag – 3, 3FS+2d, 5SS, 7FF-1d, 4FS+50% – separated by commas or semicolons.
• A task with a start and a finish but no duration keeps those dates as a manually scheduled item.

Import > Draft with AI starts from a brief instead of a file: describe what the project has to deliver, or pick a meeting transcript in the project's scope where it was planned. The draft has phases, tasks, estimated durations and dependencies and never assigns anyone. It opens in the same preview as a file import, so you review it and apply it on top of the plan or instead of it the same way. A draft costs 10 credits and is available on every plan, Free included; transcripts are never sent to China-hosted models.

A baseline is a snapshot of the plan dates you committed to. Save one in Plan settings > Baselines; pick it in the baseline menu of the toolbar (it reads No baseline until you do) to draw its bars under the current ones on the timeline and add Baseline finish and Finish variance columns to the grid. Saving into a slot that is already used replaces it.

Custom fields add columns to the grid – text, number, date, yes/no, list, cost or duration. Manage them in Plan settings > Custom fields. Imported custom fields stay visible on every plan; adding new ones is included in the Business plan.

Choose Export in the workspace toolbar:

• MS Project XML opens in Project desktop with the outline, dependencies, constraints, deadlines, progress, calendars, resources, assignments and saved baselines.
• CSV spreadsheet has one row per item for Excel, Sheets and other tools.

Dates are wall-clock times in the plan time zone, the same way MS Project stores them.

The same steps run over the API with a project manager's key. Imports and exports cost no credits.

# 1. Start the import and get a signed upload URL
curl "https://www.flowrelay.it/api/v1/projects/3fa85f64-5717-4562-b3fc-2c963f66afa6/imports" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer fr_your_api_key" \
  -X POST \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"kind": "mspdi", "fileName": "launch-plan.xml"}'
 
# 2. Upload the file to upload.signedUrl from the response (no Authorization header)
curl "$SIGNED_URL" -X PUT -H "Content-Type: application/xml" --data-binary @launch-plan.xml
 
# 3. Read it, then poll until status is "preview"
curl "https://www.flowrelay.it/api/v1/projects/3fa85f64-5717-4562-b3fc-2c963f66afa6/imports/6d1f0c2a-8b3e-4f5a-9c7d-2e1f0a9b8c7d" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer fr_your_api_key" \
  -X POST \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"action": "parse"}'
 
# 4. Apply it, then poll until status is "applied"
curl "https://www.flowrelay.it/api/v1/projects/3fa85f64-5717-4562-b3fc-2c963f66afa6/imports/6d1f0c2a-8b3e-4f5a-9c7d-2e1f0a9b8c7d" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer fr_your_api_key" \
  -X POST \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"action": "apply", "mode": "append"}'

The signed upload URL is valid for 2 hours. For a CSV file send "kind": "csv" and Content-Type: text/csv. GET /projects/{id}/export?format=mspdi (or csv) downloads the plan. See the API reference for every field.

• 50 MB per file and 10 imports per hour per person.
• The item limit of your plan applies to the imported tasks (200 on Free, 20,000 on paid plans).
• The uploaded file is deleted once the import is applied or discarded, and after 7 days at the latest.