This article describes features and functionality that have been discontinued or changed in Microsoft Project Server 2013.
Project task synchronization with Exchange Server
In previous versions of Project Server, users could manually set up synchronization with Exchange Server so that they could manage tasks in a simple way using Outlook. In Project Server 2013, this feature has been significantly modified to provide an improved and more robust integration with Exchange Server 2013 and SharePoint Foundation 2013. However, support for integrating Project Server 2013 with previous versions of Exchange Server has been removed. Project Server 2013 can only be synchronized with mailboxes hosted on Exchange Server 2013.
Reason for the change
By requiring Exchange Server 2013 for Outlook integration, all of a user’s tasks, including those from Outlook, SharePoint Foundation 2013, and Project Server 2013, can be aggregated and synchronized on a single SharePoint site. This provides a broad, inclusive view of all tasks on a single user’s plate, across multiple task tracking systems. This is a much more complete model than what was included in previous releases of Project Server.
Backwards compatibility support
In previous versions of Project Server, users could connect an earlier version of the Project Professional client application to a later version of Project Server. For example, users could connect Office Project Professional 2007 to Project Server 2010. This was referred to as “backward compatibility mode,” or BCM. In Project Server 2013, BCM is not supported. Users must have Project Professional 2013 to connect to Project Server 2013.
Reason for the change
BCM functionality was not commonly used in previous versions of Project Server.
