We are happy to announce the release of OpenProject 15.5. Among other changes, users now can filter for descendants of work packages, which includes children, grandchildren, and deeper levels in the hierarchy. This makes it easier to focus on specific parts of a project hierarchy.

In this blog article, we will take a closer look at these feature updates:

• Filter for descendants of work packages
• Column for children in work package tables (Enterprise add-on)
• % Complete included in work package table sums
• Advanced accessibility

And there are more great updates in this version again. For more details on other changes, features and bug fixes in 15.5, please check out our release notes.

Tip

The next version is already on the horizon: In May 2025, we plan to release OpenProject 16.0 with major feature changes. One change will be the ‘sunsetting’ of classic meetings, meaning users will only be able to create one-time and recurring meetings then. With the release of 15.5, you already see a hint in the application that classic meetings are unsupported. We recommend switching to the newer meeting types now to benefit from recent improvements and to ensure a smooth transition. Read this article to learn more: Classic meetings will be replaced: What changes with OpenProject 16.0

Filter for descendants of work packages

OpenProject 15.5 introduces a helpful new filter to better navigate complex project structures. The Descendants of filter allows you to display all related work packages beneath a selected parent — including its children, grandchildren, and deeper levels.

For example, if you apply the filter “Descendants of” is (OR) “Open Source Conference”, the view will include:

• Two direct children: Create sponsorship brochure and hand-outs and Set date and location of conference
• Two children of the brochure task — in other words, grandchildren of the main phase: Design brochure and Write brochure text
• One grandchild under the location task: Contact sponsoring partners

This filter is available wherever filters are supported, such as work package tables or agile boards. Until now, it was only possible to filter for parent work packages — this new option lets you see the full hierarchy below a selected item, making it easier to focus on a specific part of your project and understand its structure at a glance.

Column for children in work package tables (Enterprise add-on)

OpenProject 15.5 adds a new Children column to work package tables — giving you a faster and more structured way to view hierarchical relationships without needing to apply filters or switch views.

This column shows a clickable dropdown icon alongside the number of child work packages linked to each parent. With one click, you can expand the parent directly in the table to get an immediate overview of its structure. Each child is clearly marked with a Child label, helping you stay oriented even in complex project hierarchies.

This feature is especially useful when working with large datasets or focused views, where quickly understanding relationships between work packages is key.

For example, in a project phase like Open Source Conference, the Children column shows how many related work packages are connected to that phase — helping teams assess scope and progress without leaving the table view.

Note

All relationship columns, including the new Children column, are part of the Enterprise add-ons.

% Complete included in work package table sums

Imagine you’re part of an NGO marketing team planning newsletters, blog articles, and videos for the upcoming year. Each campaign includes several tasks — like writing a blog post titled Behind the scenes: Organizing a field mission or producing the video Meet our volunteers. Both are in progress and marked as 40% complete.

With OpenProject 15.5, it’s now easier to get an overview of your content pipeline: the % Complete value is included in the sum row of work package tables. Alongside Work and Remaining work, this provides a quick snapshot of overall progress — in this case, 42 hours of work planned, 25.2 hours remaining, and an overall completion rate of 40%.

All three values are calculated based on the selected progress tracking mode, giving you accurate insights tailored to your team’s workflow — whether you’re tracking effort manually or automatically.

Advanced accessibility

Accessibility is not just a feature — it’s a fundamental part of building inclusive software. With version 15.5, we’ve taken another step forward in making OpenProject more accessible, especially for users who rely on screen readers or keyboard navigation.

The date picker now provides clearer, more meaningful feedback during manual input, ensuring that everyone can interact with project timelines confidently and independently. This means that screen readers now announce when switching between manual and automatic scheduling modes. Changes to one field, such as the Start date or Duration, are immediately announced when they affect related fields. The “Today” shortcuts come with ARIA labels that give users helpful context — for example, “Select today as start date.”

These improvements are part of our ongoing ARIA implementation strategy to ensure that OpenProject is usable by as many people as possible. Further accessibility enhancements are planned for upcoming versions.

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OpenProject 15.5: Migration, installation, updates and support

Follow the upgrade guide for the packaged installation or Docker installation to update your OpenProject installation to OpenProject 15.5. We update your hosted OpenProject environments (Enterprise cloud) today, April 16, 2025.

You will find more information about all new features and changes in our Release notes or in the OpenProject Documentation.

If you need support, you can post your questions in the Community Forum, or if you are eligible for Enterprise support, please contact us and we are happy to support you personally.

• New to OpenProject? To test all features of OpenProject 15.5 right away, create a 14 days free trial instance for our OpenProject Enterprise cloud.
• Prefer to run OpenProject 15.5 in your own infrastructure? Here you can find the Installation guidelines for OpenProject.
• Want to upgrade from a Community version to try out the Enterprise add-ons? Get a 14 days free trial token to test the Enterprise add-ons.

Credits

A very special thank you goes to the City of Cologne, Deutsche Bahn and ZenDiS for sponsoring released or upcoming features. Your support, alongside the efforts of our amazing Community, helps drive these innovations.

Also, a big thanks to our Community members for reporting bugs and helping us identify and provide fixes. Special thanks for reporting and finding bugs go to Abhiyan Paudyal, Andreas H., Paul Kernstock, Patrick Stapf, and Stefan Weiberg.

Last but not least, we are very grateful for our very engaged translation contributors on Crowdin, who translated quite a few OpenProject strings! This release we would like to particularly thank the following users:

• Yuliia Pavliuk, for a great number of translations into Ukrainian.
• Adam Siemienski, for a great number of translations into Polish.
• NCAA, for a great number of translations into Danish.
• greench, for a great number of translations into Turkish.

Would you like to help out with translations yourself? Then take a look at our translation guide and find out exactly how you can contribute. It is very much appreciated!

As always, we welcome any feedback on this release. 💙

Whether you’re a team of five or fifty — as your organization grows, so does the number of projects, tasks, and priorities. At some point, work packages that once fit on one board become a sea of cards, and keeping focus becomes a challenge.

That’s why we created the Attribute highlighting feature: it helps you immediately see what needs your attention most. In this article, we’ll walk you through a relatable scenario and show how this Enterprise add-on can support you in staying focused and scaling successfully.

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You’ve grown — now it’s time to change how you work

Things are going well. Your organization is growing. More clients, more projects, more team members. But with growth comes complexity. What used to be a simple backlog is now a multi-project list of dozens — maybe hundreds — of open tasks. And suddenly, you’re no longer sure what’s urgent, what’s blocked, or what’s been waiting for weeks.

Your system hasn’t changed, but your needs have. And that’s a good thing — because it means it’s time to invest in new ways to keep your growing team aligned.

Clean up your work package table by highlighting priority, status or finish date

Let’s take your team’s work package table as an example.

You’ve filtered for this month’s deliverables — but the list is still long. You spot tasks with due dates coming up, some that are marked high priority, and one that was updated just now. But it takes a few minutes of scrolling and reading to get the full picture.

That’s where Attribute highlighting comes in. This Enterprise add-on allows you to visually emphasize specific values in your work package table using color: overdue tasks can turn red, high-priority items might stand out in orange, and different status values can appear in clearly distinguishable shades.

With just a glance, your team can now immediately see:

• What’s overdue,
• What’s marked as high or urgent priority,
• What’s resolved or in progress.

Important

The Attribute highlighting feature is part of the Enterprise add-ons in OpenProject. You can find more information about it in our documentation.

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How Attribute highlighting works

Let’s say your team uses the Priority attribute and a custom status workflow. You can highlight individual attributes inline (Status, Priority, Finish date) or apply full-row highlighting based on Status, Type, or Priority.

Once you’ve set this up in the work package table view, your team sees these visual cues automatically — without needing to open each task individually.

Tip

You can configure which colors are used for each priority and status in the System administration. Learn how to adjust them for priorities and for statuses.

Let’s look at an example work package table and how it looks with different attributes highlighted. Please note that you can change the colors for work package attributes and that they might look different in dark mode or light mode.

1. No attribute highlighting

Image 1: A work package table in OpenProject, no attributes highlighted.

2. Status, Priority and Finish date highlighted inline

Image 2: A work package table in OpenProject, with inline-highlighted Status, Priority and Finish date.

3. Highlighted by Status

Image 3: A work package table in OpenProject, highlighted by Status.

4. Highlighted by Type

Image 4: A work package table in OpenProject, highlighted by Type.

5. Highlighted by Priority

Image 5: A work package table in OpenProject, highlighted by Priority.

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Other helpful features for prioritizing work packages

Attribute highlighting works best in combination with other prioritization features. Here are a few tools to support your growing team:

• Work package priorities
  Assign Low, Normal, or High to indicate importance.

• Status workflows
  Define which status transitions are possible and by whom, helping structure review and approval processes.

• Date alerts and reminders
  Automatically notify assignees or watchers when a due date is approaching.

• Versions
  Group work packages under a common version to align delivery and deadlines across tasks.

• Custom fields
  Add structured information to work packages that you can then use for filtering, highlighting, or grouping.

Each of these features helps you bring structure to complexity — and together, they make it easier to stay focused.

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Stay focused as you scale

Growth is exciting — but only sustainable if your tools grow with you. Features like Attribute highlighting can make a real difference: not by changing how you work, but by making it easier to see what matters.

With a growing team and more responsibilities, the ability to focus at a glance isn’t just a nice-to-have — it’s essential. Let OpenProject help you take that next step.