Table of Contents

Altus Product – General FAQ

What is Altus?

Altus is a Project and Portfolio Management (PPM) solution built on the Microsoft Power Platform. It is designed to manage work across portfolios, programs, and projects while integrating tightly with Microsoft tools such as Power Platform, Microsoft Project, Teams, Word, and SharePoint.

What are the main Altus products and add‑ins?

Altus is made up of several complementary products:

  • Altus PPM – The core solution installed into a customer’s Power Platform environment
  • Altus for Project – A Microsoft Project Desktop add‑in for advanced scheduling with governance and reporting in Altus
  • Altus for Word – A Word add‑in for creating and maintaining “living documents” from Altus data
  • Altus for Teams – Integration with Teams and SharePoint for collaboration
  • Altus Copilot – An AI assistant built on Microsoft Copilot technology

Full product list

Where does Altus data live?

Altus data is stored and processed inside the customer’s own Microsoft Power Platform environment (Dataverse). Altus does not host customer PPM data externally as part of the core product.

This architecture supports enterprise governance, security, and compliance expectations.

How does Altus integrate with Microsoft Project Desktop?

Altus for Project allows users to:

  • Use Microsoft Project Desktop for advanced scheduling
  • Publish schedules into Altus for governance, reporting, and portfolio views
  • Synchronise tasks, resources, durations, and dependencies

Altus for Project is distributed via Click‑Once (with MSI considered legacy).

Release notes and supported versions

Why do some scheduling or resource behaviours differ between Project Desktop and Altus?

Altus applies governance and consistency rules when ingesting schedules. For example:

  • Certain calculated fields are read‑only in Altus
  • Resource mappings and rollups may be normalised
  • Task timing and duration corrections may occur during publish

These behaviours are intentional to ensure portfolio‑level accuracy rather than mirroring every Microsoft Project Desktop nuance.

Does Altus support resource management and timesheets?

Yes. Altus supports:

  • Forward planning of resource allocations
  • Monitoring workloads and exceptions
  • Capturing, submitting, and approving timesheets
  • Reporting at project, program, and portfolio level

These capabilities are part of the core Altus PPM feature set.

Altus As Built Guide

How does Altus handle documentation and files?

Altus does not replace SharePoint. Instead, it:

  • Links and tracks documents stored in SharePoint, Teams, or Group sites
  • Allows documents to be associated with portfolios, programs, or projects
  • Surfaces documents contextually inside Altus views

Documentation is tracked via Altus registers and object views.

Altus Registers

What is Altus for Word used for (and what is it not)?

Altus for Word is designed for:

  • Business cases
  • Change requests
  • Steering papers
  • Status documents that evolve over time

It synchronises live Altus fields and tables into Word documents.

It is not intended to replace reporting tools or dashboards.

Altus for Word guidance and comparison

How does Altus support collaboration in Teams?

Altus integrates with Microsoft Teams to:

  • Surface project content in Teams contexts
  • Link projects, documents, and conversations
  • Enable collaboration without leaving Microsoft 365

This allows teams to work where they already are, while Altus remains the system of record.

How does Altus handle environments (GA, Canary, etc.)?

Altus follows a ring‑based release model, typically including:

  • Canary
  • First Release
  • General Availability (GA)

Features and fixes appear in Canary first, then roll through to GA. Version coverage is documented explicitly in release notes.

Altus Release Notes

Is Altus cloud‑only?

Altus PPM is designed for Microsoft Power Platform environments.

While Microsoft offers some on‑premises Microsoft 365 options, Power Platform (and therefore Altus) is not supported on‑premises at this time. This is a platform constraint rather than an Altus limitation.

How does Altus handle product lifecycle and retirement?

Altus products follow defined lifecycle stages:

  • Pre‑Release
  • Mainstream Support
  • Extended Support
  • Retired

Legacy products (for example, Reporting Hub and Integration Hub) have published retirement timelines.

Lifecycle policy

Does Altus include built‑in help or guidance?

Yes. Altus includes a Product Help experience with:

  • Interactive guidance
  • Contextual help panels
  • AI‑powered help centre based on Altus documentation

This can be enabled or disabled by administrators.

Altus Training documentation

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