Easy Onboard: bring a running project into AtlanticM&A
AtlanticM&A5 min read
Easy Onboard is how you bring a project that is already running into AtlanticM&A: you import the work plan and the risk register you keep today, and carry on from where you are instead of starting again.
Most projects are not new
Software is usually demonstrated on a blank page. Real programmes are rarely on one. By the time anyone looks for a better tool there is already a plan, a RAID log, owners, dates and a steering committee expecting its next pack.
I know this from the other side. The last programme I ran, nine acquisitions as Chief Transformation Officer of a private-equity-backed life sciences platform, ran on a dashboard I designed and built myself. It worked. I would not have retyped it for anyone's software, and nobody running a live programme should have to.
So when you create a project in AtlanticM&A, you say whether it is new or already in flight. If it is already running, you start with the import and work backwards.
What comes across
The work-plan import takes Excel (.xlsx or .xls), CSV and Microsoft Project files. An existing 100-day plan, integration plan or master schedule out of Excel, Smartsheet or a CSV file will do.
- Columns: task name, start and due dates, percentage complete, owner, phase and the teams a task depends on, wherever your file has them. They are matched from their header names. Task-to-task predecessor links are not imported; Walk the Walls works from the dependencies between teams. Missing columns are not fatal; they are simply blank on the other side. The one column a sheet must have is the task name.
- Hierarchy: a level, outline-level or WBS column, or leading spaces in the task name, becomes the hierarchy, so a plan that already nests sections and tasks arrives nested.
- Workstreams: from sheet names, a workstream column or the top-level sections. In a Microsoft Project file, the top-level summary tasks become the workstreams.
- Owners: come across as text, as written. Assign each one to a team member afterwards.
Risk and RAID registers import the same way, from Excel or CSV. The importer looks for title, type, severity, probability, impact, owner, status and mitigation plan, and the preview counts what it found as risks, issues, actions and dependencies. In the risk register, owners are matched to project members by email or name, and any it cannot match are left blank with a warning.
If you would rather start clean, each importer offers a template to download, laid out the way the importer reads it.
You see it before anything is written
Uploading the file saves nothing. The dialog shows each workstream it detected, with a task count and the first few tasks, plus any warnings by sheet and row. Sheets that look like a summary, a dashboard or instructions are left out or start unticked, and you choose which workstreams come in. A workstream whose name matches one already in the project takes the new tasks; the rest are created, and the summary afterwards marks them New.
One limit worth stating plainly: import is additive. Import the same file twice and you get the tasks twice, so if you are re-importing a corrected version, clear the earlier tasks first. Importing again to bring in another workstream's plan is exactly what it is for.
After the import
The import guide suggests three checks: the hierarchy came through as you expected, the dates land inside your project phases, and each task's owner is assigned to a team member, because owners arrive as text. Then check RAG status, because status is what the reporting reads.
From there, work backwards. The usual order in AtlanticM&A is Strategic Direction, then charters, then work plans, but nothing enforces it. A running project can start with its plan and add the Strategic Direction and charters afterwards, so the work you imported ends up traced to what the project is for.
No big-bang cutover
Self-serve import covers Excel, CSV and Microsoft Project. Synergy models have an importer of their own, and a TSA agreement can be read straight into the TSA tracker. Live deals stay live while it happens. The import works the same whichever of the six project types you run: integration, divestiture, value creation, transformation, agentic transformation or cloud migration.
The point is continuity. The plan you kept by hand becomes the plan the project runs on, and from then on the reporting comes out of that plan instead of being rebuilt beside it.
About AtlanticM&A
AtlanticM&A is the Agentic Transformation OS. Its agents work inside the programme, both augmenting and automating the work of the transformation team: work plans, governance, stakeholders and reporting in one place, with a live value bridge that moves as the work does. It is a system of work rather than only being a system of record: the charter is written in it and the plan is built in it. Meeting notes come back as proposed updates to the plan and the RAID log, the team decides what stands, and every change the AI makes carries an audit trail. The platform does the slide-building, status reporting and stakeholder briefings that usually keep a consulting pyramid busy, so a small senior team can run the programme more nimbly and for less.