Generate a project plan using project plan generation skill

  • Release version: Zurich
  • Updated April 18, 2026
  • 2 minutes to read

    • Use Project plan generation skill to generate a project plan from natural language input, uploaded files, or both.

    Before you begin

    Role required: it_project_manager

    • Install Now Assist for Strategic Portfolio Management (SPM) plugin.

    • To use attachments to generate a project, activate the document intelligence skill. The default LLM is Azure OpenAI. Switching to a different model may affect accuracy.

    • The project plan generation skill is activated by default. For more information on how to activate the skill if it isn't automatically activated or if you want to change the skill configuration, see Configure Now Assist Admin features.

    About this task

    Now Assist scans your project and task details to generate content. Review and edit the output before creating the project. Supported file types are word, pdf, excel, and powerpoint, with a 5 MB file size limit. Only the first five attachments are processed.

    For project and task supported column configurations, see Supported columns for project and task generation.

    Procedure

    1. Navigate to Workspaces > Project Workspace.
    2. Select Generate project to use Now Assist to generate a project.

      AI-generated project plan in Project Workspace.

      To create a project without using Now Assist, use New project from template or New project options.

    3. Provide your project input using one or more of these methods.
      • In the text field, describe your project using natural language. If you provide only natural language input, the document intelligence skill is not required.
      • Select Attach files and upload a word, pdf, excel, or powerpoint document. To use file attachments, activate the document intelligence skill. For more information, see Activate a Now Assist in Document Intelligence skill.
      Note:
      Attach a file or enter context as free-form text before proceeding. No input returns an error. Insufficient context may also trigger an error.
    4. Select Next to generate the project.
    5. Select Create project.
    6. Review the pre-populated project name, approved start date, approved end date, or business case.

      Now assist generated project plan.

      Edit the fields as needed and add a description.

      Note:
      Because the information in these fields is automatically generated, it's a good idea to review the text and make sure it's accurate.

    Result

    The project is created with the generated tasks, including task hierarchy and dates derived from your input.

    Generate a project plan from an Excel file

    Input: An excel file with two sheets:
    • Sheet 1: Project details such as project name, start and end dates, budget, and key objectives.
    • Sheet 2: 18 tasks with task name, phase, start date, end date, and duration.
    Output AI reads the file and creates the following:
    • Project record with: Name, description, start and end dates, and business case derived from the key objectives.
    • 18 task records with: Task name, description, start and end dates, duration, and state. Fields not present in the file, such as key milestone and time constraint, are auto-populated with default values.