Every project starts with something written down. A charter. A brief. A scoping spreadsheet someone built the night before kickoff. And then, almost always, someone spends an afternoon retyping all of it into a project plan.

AI Project Plan Generation in Project Workspace gives you that afternoon back. Upload what you already have, describe what you want in plain language, and Project Workspace drafts the plan for you: project details, work breakdown structure (WBS), tasks, dates, and milestones. You review it, keep what you want, and get back to the work that actually needs a project manager.

This post covers two things: what it does, and how to get an accurate plan on the first try. The full guide and templates are attached at the bottom.

How it works

Three steps, and nothing is saved until you say so.

1. Provide context. Type a prompt, attach a document, or both. Word, PDF, and Excel are supported.
2. Review project details. Check the project name, start and end dates, description, and business case. Edit anything right there.
3. Review project tasks. See every task the AI found, select the ones you want, and create the project. A separate tab lists any task missing required information.

Your plan lands in the planning grid, fully editable. Nothing is locked in.

What it reads today: project name, description, business case, project start and end dates, your phases, tasks, and subtasks, a planned start and finish for every row, and milestones.

What it doesn’t read yet : resources, dependencies, and financials. Keep those columns in your file if you like they’re simply ignored and add them in Project Workspace once your plan is created. These capabilities will be coming in future releases!

The one thing to know

The quality of your plan depends far more on what you upload than on how cleverly you prompt.

A tidy, clearly labeled source gives you a plan you can run in minutes. A source with merged cells, vague timing, and meaning hidden in cell colors gives the AI less to work with, and you spend the time you saved cleaning up. If a plan comes back wrong, fix the file. Rewriting the prompt rarely helps.

Six habits that drive accuracy

1. Give every row a name and two dates. Planned start and planned finish are required on every row, phase and summary rows included. Undated phases get flagged before import.
2. Keep task names short. Task names become the short description. One line each, with detail in a description column or paragraph.
3. Write dates one way: YYYY-MM-DD. 2026-08-17 reads the same in every region. In a spreadsheet, format those cells as dates, not text.
4. Number your hierarchy. Indentation doesn’t carry structure, so a plan shown only by indenting comes back flat. WBS numbering (1, 1.1, 1.1.1) is the most reliable. An outline level or parent task column also works. Pick one, not both.
5. Leave duration out, or make it agree. If start, finish, and duration don’t add up, the mismatch can corrupt the import. Let the dates do the work.
6. One unit, one spelling, one name. A phase called “Integration” in one row and “API work” in the next looks like two different things.
   

Upload a document and a spreadsheet together

The strongest input is a pair: a charter or brief for the project details, and a task sheet for the work. Spreadsheets are read for tasks only. Upload a sheet on its own and you’ll still get your task list, but you’ll fill in the project name, dates, description, and business case yourself, or paste them into the prompt.

What you have	What to upload
A charter or brief and a task sheet	Word or PDF, plus Excel (the best combination)
A task list or scoping sheet	Excel, with project details in the prompt
A charter or brief with phases and milestones	Word or PDF
Nothing written down yet	A prompt only

Spreadsheets: get the shape right

Most spreadsheet problems come down to shape, not content.

• One table per sheet , with a meaningful tab name.
• One header row, in row 1. No titles or logos above it.
• No merged cells. This is the single biggest cause of dropped or misgrouped tasks.
• No blank rows or columns inside the data. A blank row reads as “the table ends here.”
• One task per row. “Design, review, and sign-off” is three rows.
• Put meaning in cells, not colors. If red means at risk, add a status column that says “At risk.”
• Keep milestones in the task list , next to the work they belong to. Give them the same start and finish date, and mark the milestone column “Yes.”

Standard headers map best: Task ID, Task Name, Start Date, Finish Date, Description, Milestone.

Briefs and charters: explicit beats implied

Label your sections with the plan fields you want filled: project name, project start date, project end date, business case, description, phases, and milestones. Plain headings beat clever layout every time. A well-labeled two-page charter outperforms a beautiful twelve-page one.

Here’s the difference:

Reads well: “PHASE 1—Discovery (2026-08-03 to 2026-08-07): stakeholder interviews 2026-08-03 to 2026-08-05; requirements sign-off 2026-08-06 to 2026-08-07.”

Makes the AI guess: “We want to modernize the portal sometime this fall and get it out before the holidays. The team will sort out the phases.”

The second version has no dates, no phase boundaries, and no tasks, so the AI has to invent them. One more note: dependencies written as prose (“build depends on design sign-off”) aren’t read yet.

Prompts that pull their weight

Your prompt can do three jobs.

Carry the project details itself. No file needed. Structure it like a document:

“Project: Customer portal launch. Start 2026-08-03, end 2026-10-30. Business case: consolidate three legacy portals and cut support volume. Phases: Discovery (2026-08-03 to 2026-08-07), Design (2026-08-10 to 2026-08-21), Build (2026-08-24 to 2026-09-18), Test (2026-09-21 to 2026-10-16), Launch (2026-10-19 to 2026-10-30). Milestones: Design complete 2026-08-21, Build complete 2026-09-18, Go-live 2026-10-30.”

Ask for a starting point.

“Generate a six-month ERP data migration plan with phases for discovery, data mapping, build, test cycles, cutover, and hypercare. Start 2026-09-01. Include a user acceptance testing milestone and a go-live milestone.”

Direct an attachment.

“Generate a WBS from the task sheet using the start and finish dates as given. Treat each top-level number as a phase and the numbers beneath it as its tasks. Keep go-live on 2026-10-30.”

Whichever you choose, give an anchor date, an end date or duration, and the phases you expect. Gaps get filled with default values, and those defaults can contradict the rest of your request.

Check the preview before you save

Steps 2 and 3 are your safety net. Even with a clean source, AI can get something wrong, and nothing is written to your project until you create it.

• Confirm the project name, start date, and end date. These are the fields most likely to need a fix.
• Scan the tasks for order, hierarchy depth, and dates that look off.
• Open the error tab and fix what’s listed, or deselect those tasks.
• Deselect anything you don’t want. Only what you select gets imported.

Quick fixes

What you see	The fix
Hierarchy flattened to one level	Add WBS numbering, an outline level, or a parent task column
Tasks missing or lumped together	Remove merged cells and blank rows; one header row in row 1
Phase rows flagged	Give phase rows a start and finish date too
Project details empty or generic	Add a brief or charter, or paste the details into your prompt
Dates or durations shifted	Leave duration blank, or make every row add up
Nothing found in a PDF	It’s likely a scan; upload the original Word file instead
Nothing read from the file at all	Remove password protection and upload again

Grab the templates

All three attachments use the same example project, a customer portal launch, so you can compare formats side by side.

• Best practices guide: the full reference, including column mappings, troubleshooting, and a complete pre-flight checklist.
• Project brief template (Word): a fill-in brief with headings that map straight to plan fields, plus a worked example.
• Project plan template (Excel): a task sheet with WBS numbering, dates, and milestones already in the right shape.

Fill one in, upload it, and see what comes back.

Tell us how it goes

We built AI Project Plan Generation so project managers spend less time formatting plans and more time on the work that needs their judgment. We want to hear what’s working, what isn’t, and what you’d like it to read next. Drop a comment below, or reach out at [email protected].