Quest Software on Tuesday added project management and task scheduling to its tools for migrating from Lotus Notes to Microsoft Exchange.

The improvements to Quest Notes Migrator for Exchange 4.0 are intended to give corporate users the software tools to manage e-mail migrations just like they do any other project. The new features of Notes Migrator for Exchange 4.0 also include a reporting engine based on Quest’s MessageStats Report Pack for Lotus Notes migration.

MessageStats is a reporting tool developed by Quest. Notes Migrator for Exchange users will get a free copy of the program to use for six months during their migrations.

“We seeing larger and larger customers moving to Exchange,” says Ron Robbins, product manager for Exchange migration solutions at Quest. “We are seeing 20,000 to 50,000 user accounts moving over and those users want something more project focused.” Previous versions of Notes Migrator for Exchange were a collection of wizards and utilities.

With version 4.0, however, users get a console that walks them through a migration step-by-step. The tools allow users to organize their migration planning in one location, stage user accounts for migration and control everything from a single GUI interface. The console also provides alerts and notifications of any slowdowns or errors in the process.

The task scheduling lets users schedule every job by date or deadlines to complete the migration.

Quest, which says it has migrated more than a million Notes mailboxes to date, competes with the likes of Binary Tree, Stellar Technologies, and Microsoft itself.

The software supports Exchange 2003 with support for the forthcoming Exchange 2007 to arrive 30 days after that software ships.

Quest Notes Migrator for Exchange 4.0 is priced at $10 per managed user.