At OpenProject, we believe that the best work happens when people are empowered to choose environments that suit them. Whether it’s a home office in the Brandenburg countryside, a co-working space in Madrid, or another suitable, quiet location, we empower our team to work where they’re most productive. However, we emphasize the importance of adhering to our collaboration guidelines and upholding our commitment to data privacy — making some spaces, like public cafés, not suitable for our work.

Work remotely – from anywhere

Our remote work policy is designed to be inclusive and flexible. Although our headquarters are in Germany, our team members are located across various federal states in Germany and in over 12 countries around the world. You can work from your home office, a co-working space, or wherever you find the best environment for focus and productivity. The key requirements are a secure, stable internet connection and a workspace conducive to concentration and effective and, above all, undisturbed communication during meetings.

However, certain roles may have time-zone considerations. For example, a Sales Manager for the EMEA market might find it challenging to work from San Francisco due to the significant time difference. We prioritize your health and well-being, so we aim to avoid situations where your work schedule could become detrimental.

For those outside Germany, we have a presence in Spain, France, the UK, and the USA, where we employ team members directly through our subsidiaries. We also collaborate with professionals in other countries via freelancing arrangements or Employer of Record (EOR) solutions, ensuring that location is never a barrier to joining our team.

Our core requirement: Privacy and security

At OpenProject, safeguarding the data of our clients, users, and ourselves is fundamental to our mission—it’s why we develop open source project management software. This commitment extends to your work environment. Whether you’re working from your home office, a co-working space, or elsewhere, your workspace must comply with our stringent data privacy standards. This means having a workspace where you can ensure confidentiality — no unauthorized ears listening in on conversations, and no prying eyes on your screen.

We also believe that a comfortable work environment is crucial for productivity. Whether it’s noise levels, ergonomic furniture, or the overall ambiance, your workspace should help you do your best work.

Building a remote culture based on trust

Remote work at OpenProject is built on trust—trust in each other and the systems we use to stay connected. We’ve developed a remote culture that emphasizes clear communication, mutual respect, and a shared commitment to our goals. Through regular team meetings, virtual coffee breaks, and our collaborative project management tool, we stay connected and aligned, no matter where we’re working from.

Tip

If you’re interested in how we built a successful remote work culture at OpenProject, check out our detailed article on implementing remote work effectively. Discover more articles about OpenProject as an employer in our blog.

Shared moments beyond projects

Of course, there are no hallway talks and chats by the coffee machine in a remote work environment. Therefore, we create other possibilities to meet, for example our monthly coffee chats with a random selected group or our game nights. Since we’re in Berlin, we organize regular get-togethers where we meet in person and everyone who happens to be in the area is welcomed to join.

Every now and then, the company also organizes a passion time. In an inspiring setting, we can bring to life the projects we personally want to see realized for OpenProject. Before passion time starts, anyone can pitch ideas and form cross-departmental working groups. These ways we create space for innovative ideas and experimentation, learn from each other and foster our shared sense of purpose. But we also just have a great time together!

Apart from passion time and remote meetings, we also meet at least once a year as a company. These meet-ups are especially valuable for getting to know one another better. That’s why spending time together is clearly the main focus here.

In addition to the large off-sites, the departments also regularly organize their own get-togethers to discuss more complex projects and get to know one another better as a small team.

If you want to find out more about our shared aspirations and how we work together, visit our YouTube channel. Watch the video below to get a sense of what our get-togethers are like and what OpenProject employees value about working here:

OpenProject employees on working remotely

We asked some OpenProject employees how they feel about working from their home office or another suitable work location:

“I am based in southern Germany. Working remotely is a big plus for me as I am very flexible: No time is lost commuting to work. I can work more hours, pick my daughter up from kindergarten in no time at all and enjoy my breaks in the comfort of my own home, so that I’m really refreshed afterwards.”
Corinna, International Marketing Manager

“Working from my home in Nairobi, Kenya, I find it easy to collaborate with my European colleagues due to our close time zones. Even with team members from further away, tools like OpenProject ensure seamless asynchronous communication, making remote work both flexible and efficient.”
Kabiru, Software Engineer

“Working remotely was a significant factor in my decision to join OpenProject. The flexibility it offers is invaluable, especially in balancing my work and personal life. For me, the key aspects of remote work are maintaining regular communication with the team and having the freedom to manage my own schedule. This setup allows me to stay productive while also being present for my family, which is incredibly important to me.”
Giuseppe, People & Organization Manager (HR)

Want to hear more? We have full interviews with our employees, for example with Marcello Rocha (Senior Software Engineer), Maya Berdygylyjova (Documentation) or Samantha Machon (Customer Success).

Join us from anywhere

If you’re passionate about what we do and can accommodate working within European time zones, we want to hear from you. Whether you’re based in Germany, another EU country, or even further afield, we’re open to finding the right solution to bring you on board.

At OpenProject, your work environment is in your hands. We provide the tools and support you need to do your best work, wherever that may be. If this level of flexibility and freedom aligns with your career goals, we’d love to talk. Join us in shaping the future of project management, one remote team at a time.

Visit the OpenProject career page.

A unique part of an open source software like OpenProject is the open source Community. It is a global community of users, developers, advocates and anyone else interested in and engaged with the use of the software, development and growth. Collaboration within the community can happen in different ways. Let us show you how.

Connect and exchange within the open source Community

Open source projects benefit from an active Community. Dedicated platforms support this exchange. For example, an open source community forum can be used as a place for exchange of thoughts, ideas and help. Everyone is invited to post or start a conversation and connect with each other. Members can ask each other for support in technical matters, e.g. if they have a question regarding the use of a certain feature. They can also share best practices, discuss possible developments and further topics. As all discussions are saved and open to everyone, your question might already have been answered and you can find the answer directly in the forum.

OpenProject has a global, active Community that is in constant exchange with the internal OpenProject team as well. In the forum people can discuss along different categories as development, installation support and much more. That is how we make sure that the right people can connect with each other based on the topic they want to discuss and feedback can be provided quickly. Especially for the users of the free OpenProject Community edition, the forum can serve as a support channel as professional support is part of our Enterprise edition.

Collaboration with open source partners

The demand for open source software is high in every field. And building it is a team sport! OpenProject is part of a network of open source companies and software providers, our key partners include Nextcloud, XWiki and many more. Especially as part of openDesk, we share core values and goals: Above all, the aspiration for digital sovereignty and the commitment to putting the user first. We also share our learnings, knowledge and software. And it doesn’t stop here: We also integrate our tools to ensure they work seamlessly together and create an open source environment.

Tip

Have you tried our Nextcloud integration yet? Benefit from the strength of open source software while maintaining complete control over your data.

Whenever possible, we meet up. For example at events such as FOSDEM, Nextcloud Enterprise Day or the Univention Summit. This is also an opportunity for us to meet with our (shared) Community, so please come and speak to us! You can find details of all the events we attend on our social media channels.

Image: Anna Mohn from OpenProject and Clément Aubin from XWiki, on stage at Univention Summit 2026.

Collaboration on the open source software

Beyond the exchange in a forum, the open source Community also actively collaborates to further develop the open source software and drive its continued growth. There are various ways in which everyone can contribute to the project in their own way, according to their knowledge and skills:

Feature requests

At the heart of an open source software is the user. The software should fulfil the user’s needs and solve their problems, which is why it is essential to involve the Community in the development. You can contribute by submitting feature requests or expressing their needs that they would like to be addressed by the developers.

OpenProject invites its Community to submit feature requests and ideas for improvement. We keep track of how many users want a certain feature and consequently prioritize these requests and see how we can fit them into our roadmap. This is a transparent process that can be tracked in our public OpenProject project.

Bug reporting and fixing

Software is never complete and never error-free. That is why our Community is so important for identifying, reporting and fixing bugs. Fixing bugs is, of course, mostly reserved for developers. However, identifying and reporting bugs can be done by anyone. In general, a diverse global community can report more bugs than an internal team working on a proprietary solution. As a result, open source solutions can achieve higher quality.

If you find any bugs in OpenProject, please report them, we really appreciate it. Then our internal OpenProject team can prioritize and work on them to improve the quality of our application. You will find a guide on how to report a bug when creating a new work package of type Bug in our Community instance.

Testing

Software needs constant testing, ensuring that both existing and new features work as intended. This is where the Community can also come in and help with testing to make sure the solution is robust. As everyone has access to the open source software code, it can be more thoroughly reviewed by the Community and errors spotted earlier and issues solved faster and more diligently.

OpenProject uses automated tests throughout the stack. If you want to start working with the OpenProject test suite, you would need to use the testing setup with Github Actions. You will find all further details on our testing guide.

Contributions to the documentation

The documentation is an important part of OpenProject. It offers a wide range of free material covering a glossary of key terms, user guides for different cases, release notes and more. It ensures that everyone can access reliable resources to understand and work with OpenProject, whether they are a user or an administrator. People can contribute to it by clarifying content and explanations, fixing spelling errors and improving accessibility. Please also take a look at our documentation contribution guidelines.

Translating

To make OpenProject accessible to as many people as possible, we translate the application and documentation. The software itself is available in more than 30 languages. Our Community can contribute by translating from English into their native language; helping to expand the software’s usage across different language regions. We use CrowdIn as a platform for the translation. Get an overview of the process and join us in translating OpenProject to your language.

Contributions to the code

Another aspect of the open source community is contributing to software development. OpenProject is continuously developed and maintained by the OpenProject team together with an active international Community. As a result, the development process also centers on the users themselves, giving them the chance to bring their ideas to life.

We follow a structured requirements and product development process, so if you are interested, please first take a look at our development guidelines and processes.

Spread the word

Beyond coding and translation, supporting a project also means raising awareness and reaching a wider audience. Share your experiences with OpenProject (online and offline), follow us on our social media channels and spread the word about open source alternatives! Explore your possibilities, there are many ways to be a part of OpenProject and our open source Community.

We look forward to your contribution!

OpenProject 17.3 has been released and, as announced on our blog, introduces several improvements to agile project management, making it easier to plan and structure work with sprints, backlogs and boards.

In this article, we highlight the most important changes and what they mean for your daily work. And, as always, please see our release notes that contain all changes, features and bug fixes.

A quick article navigation:

• Agile evolution with sprints and backlogs
• Dedicated sprint objects
• All work packages visible on backlogs
• Automatic sprint board creation
• Closing a sprint and handling remaining work
• Action boards now available in the Community edition
• Other great improvements with OpenProject 17.3

Agile evolution with sprints and backlogs

Agile workflows have long been supported in OpenProject, but often required workarounds or manual setup. In our recent article on the future of agile work, we outlined how we want to further evolve these workflows and make them more intuitive and accessible.

With OpenProject 17.3, we are now taking the next step and bringing these improvements directly into the product, supporting both the planning and execution of agile work.

Important

If you are already working with the Backlogs module, you will notice changes to the layout and behavior with OpenProject 17.3. These updates are designed to simplify your workflow, while preserving your existing data and structure.

Dedicated sprint objects

If you have been working with agile methods in OpenProject, you may already be familiar with using versions as a way to structure your sprints. While this approach worked well, it required a certain level of adaptation and was not always intuitive, particularly for teams transitioning from other tools.

With OpenProject 17.3, we are introducing dedicated sprint objects as a natural way to plan and organize your work. Instead of relying on workarounds, sprints are now a core part of the Backlogs module and can be used directly to structure your work packages.

Each sprint comes with key attributes such as name, status, and dates, and work packages can be assigned to sprints in a straightforward way. This creates a clearer and more consistent structure for planning and executing agile work and makes it easier for teams to get started, including those migrating from tools like Jira.

All work packages visible on backlogs

When planning work in backlogs, teams often had to decide in advance which work package types should be included. This could lead to situations where not all relevant work was visible in one place, requiring additional configuration or workarounds.

With OpenProject 17.3, backlogs now display all work package types within a project by default. This means that teams can manage and prioritize all relevant work directly in the backlog and sprint planning view.

This change provides a more consistent and flexible way to organize work, especially for teams that use different work package types across their projects.

Automatic sprint board creation

Setting up a board for a new sprint often required manual configuration, even after the sprint had already been planned. This added extra steps before teams could start working and made it harder to ensure a consistent setup across projects.

With OpenProject 17.3, a dedicated sprint board is now created automatically when starting a sprint. The board is configured based on the project’s workflows and includes all work packages assigned to the sprint.

Teams are taken directly to the board after starting the sprint, allowing them to begin working immediately without additional setup and focus directly on executing their sprint.

Closing a sprint and handling remaining work

Completing a sprint and preparing for the next iteration often required manual adjustments, especially when dealing with unfinished work.

With OpenProject 17.3, active sprints can now be completed directly. When closing a sprint, you are guided to handle remaining work packages in bulk, for example, by moving them back to the backlog or assigning them to another sprint.

This makes it easier to move from one sprint to the next and keeps your workflow consistent without additional manual steps.

Action boards now available in the Community edition

Boards have always been a central part of agile workflows in OpenProject, helping teams to visualize and organize their work. With the mentioned improvements to sprints and backlogs in OpenProject 17.3, their role becomes even more important.

With this release, all Action board types are now available in the Community edition. This extends the existing basic board functionality and allows teams to use a wider range of board configurations, such as Kanban or parent-child boards, without requiring an Enterprise plan.

In the future, we plan to develop and offer additional advanced board features, such as swimlanes and work-in-progress limits, as Enterprise add-ons.

This step reflects our commitment to making powerful agile tools accessible to a broader audience, while continuing to evolve OpenProject based on the needs of our Community.

See our documentation to learn about OpenProject’s Agile boards.

Other great improvements with OpenProject 17.3

OpenProject 17.3 offers more features and updates. To keep this article concise, here is a quick look at some additional improvements worth highlighting:

Edit project attributes directly on the project overview page

Project attributes can now be edited directly in place on the project overview page, without opening a separate dialog. This makes it faster and easier to update project information.

Sharing of meeting templates (Enterprise add-on, Basic plan)

Meeting templates, introduced in OpenProject 17.2, can now be shared across projects. Depending on the configuration, templates can be made available within a project, across subprojects, or throughout the entire instance.

Improved workflow configuration for admins

Workflow configuration has been improved with a new index view by type, a more focused display of relevant statuses, and a more reliable saving experience.

Nested groups for better user and permission management

Groups can now be nested, allowing memberships and permissions to be inherited across the group hierarchy. This also lays the foundation for future improvements in structuring groups in OpenProject.

Improved handling of project identifiers

Project identifiers can now be changed more easily without invalidating existing links. In addition, identifier handling has been improved when creating or copying projects.

Improved work package search across the application

Work package search has been extended to more areas of the application. When selecting work packages, it is now possible to search by attributes such as type and status.

OpenProject 17.3: Migration, installation, updates and support

Follow the upgrade guide for the packaged installation or Docker installation to update your OpenProject installation to OpenProject 17.3. We update your hosted OpenProject environments (Enterprise cloud) today, April 15, 2026.

You will find more information about all new features and changes in our Release notes and 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 will be happy to support you personally.

• New to OpenProject? To test all features of OpenProject 17.3 right away, create a 14 days free trial instance for our OpenProject Enterprise cloud.
• Prefer to run OpenProject 17.3 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 (all plans).

Credits

A very special thank you goes to Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin, 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 Walid Ibrahim, Jörg Mollowitz, Robin Kluth, Natalie Stettner, Gábor Alexovics, Patrick Lenk, and Daniel Elkeles.

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:

• Phi Công Nguyễn Vũ, for an outstanding number of translations into Vietnamese.
• Mehmet Coşkun, for a great number of translations into Turkish.
• Liangzdz, for a great number of translations into Chinese Simplified.

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.

OpenProject is a powerful tool, but with great power comes the complexity of customization. If you’re new to OpenProject and having trouble setting up statuses for workflows, you’re not alone. Once you understand how status transitions work in OpenProject and how they depend on roles and work package types, you’ll appreciate their full potential.

Read this article to learn…

• what statuses, roles and workflows are and how they work together,
• why your project management will be much more powerful and efficient with custom workflows,
• how to add a new status and set up a workflow for it.

Let’s dive in!

Note

April 2026: This article has been updated to reflect the latest improvements in workflow configuration in OpenProject.

Know your terms: Status, role and workflow

Let’s start with some terminology. You will be much faster to create your very own workflows with OpenProject, if you speak its language. So, what are statuses, roles and workflows? And how do they come together?

What is a status in OpenProject?

The status is a key element in every project management. In OpenProject, the status is also an essential attribute of a work package. Based on the status, everyone knows immediately how far the respective work package has progressed.

By default, statuses such as New, In progress or Closed are activated in OpenProject. However, depending on the type of work package, other statuses may be useful. For example, a work package of the type Feature needs the status In test, a work package of the type Blog post rather needs the status In review.

See our system admin guide to learn more about status management for OpenProject.

What are roles in OpenProject?

Roles in OpenProject are extremely important in order to provide each person with exactly the permissions they need - no more, no less. In addition to default roles, administrators can create their own roles and assign them fine-grained permissions.

In addition to permissions for features or project views, admins can also assign specific permissions for status changes in OpenProject roles. Exactly these settings then define a workflow in OpenProject – which we will take a closer look at in the next section.

What is a workflow in OpenProject?

Let’s get back to our example from above: Firstly, we have the status In test, which should be selectable by default for features. Then we have the In review status, which should not be selectable for features, but for work packages of the blog post type.

Now let’s take it a step further and look at the roles and permissions: Let’s say, Luke is a developer and regularly works on features. However, he is not authorized to test features - there is a separate QA team for this. Now it’s suddenly no longer enough to just assign a set of statuses to the work package type Feature, we also need different permissions to activate a status, depending on the role.

This is where workflows come into play. In OpenProject, a workflow defines which status changes are allowed depending on the role and the work package type. In other words: It is not only important what type of work package you are working on, but also who you are. For example, a developer might be allowed to move a work package from In development to Needs testing, while a QA team member can move it from Needs testing to In testing.

With workflows, administrators can control exactly which role is allowed to set which status for which work package.

Note

Status changes for workflows are configured on a global level via the administration panel: Administration → Work packages → Workflows.

This flexibility is what makes workflows in OpenProject so powerful — but also more complex at first. Instead of having a fixed process, workflows adapt to your roles and work package types, allowing you to model real-life responsibilities in your projects.

The power of customization: Simplify the work for project members

As an administrator, you have the power of defining specific workflows for each role so that project members can perform exactly the status changes they need. The more you customize as an admin at the top, the easier the work becomes for other roles further down in the project.

And remember: You only have to configure these settings once for them to work for years. So grab a coffee and block out a morning to take a closer look at status transitions in OpenProject. Your colleagues and your future work will benefit greatly!

Here’s an example of a typical work setting where status transitions with workflows will be much appreciated:

Let’s take Luke, the developer, from the example above. Now his admin Ivan wants Luke to be able to set work packages of the type Feature from New to In development and then to Needs testing. However, while Luke’s QA colleague Maya should be able to change work package statuses of the type Feature from Needs testing to In testing, this should not be possible for Luke. A role-based permission setting like this allows both the developer Luke and Maya from QA to do their jobs while preventing them from accidentally setting a status for which they have no permission.

This is how the example workflow for the role Developer and the type Feature would look like in OpenProject:

Step-by-step guide: How to add a new status and set up a workflow

Finally, let’s go through the entire process step by step: What settings does admin Ivan need to configure to define the workflows for the work package type Feature – so that each role can perform exactly the status transitions they need to do their job?

Step 1: Create the roles, the status and the work package type you need

If you are specifically looking to create a workflow, you might already have set up the roles, the status and the work package types you need. For our example, admin Ivan would first have to create a work package type called Feature under: Administration → Work packages → Types → New type.

Then he would have to make sure the statuses we described above exist (e.g. Needs testing) – and create new ones, if needed.

He would also have to set up two roles - Developer and QA. This setting can be found under Administration → Users and permissions → Roles and permissions → New role.

Tip

To save some time when creating a new role, we advise you to copy an existing workflow. Please make sure that the new role has the right to change a work package status (or edit work packages, which includes changing the status). You can also copy an existing workflow between roles. For example, you could copy the workflow from the role Developer for the type Feature to the role QA and then adjust only the transitions related to testing.

Step 2: Create and configure the workflow

Now that we have created the roles and the work package type that we want to customize, we can start creating a new workflow under Administration → Work packages → Workflows. For our example, Ivan would have to choose the type Feature.

Next, Ivan needs to select Developer from the dropdown of available roles. He now either sees the statuses that were set for this role in the past. Or, if it’s a completely new role, no status transitions are configured yet, and he can configure them by clicking the + Status button.

Once all required statuses are selected, you’ll see a table with the current status in the rows and the new statuses in the columns.

Please note that all statuses appear twice in the table: the rows show the current status, and the columns show the new status. If the cell at the intersection is checked, the transition is allowed. So, if you want the role to be able to change statuses in both directions, e.g. from New to In progress and also from In progress to New, you have to check the corresponding cells in both directions.

In our example, Ivan wants to make sure that a person with the role Developer cannot set or change a status from or to anything related to testing. If Ivan now unchecks every box that is related to testing, the screen would look like this:

The table shows status transitions enabled or disabled for developers (role) on work packages of the type Feature. As testing features should only be done by QA, these statuses are disabled in the screenshot.

Tip

OpenProject allows admins to define different status transitions depending on whether the user is the author or assignee of the work package. These options can be configured using the tabs at the top of the workflow view and allow you to define more flexible or stricter workflows depending on the situation.

Now, don’t forget to click Save and your workflow is ready!

Tip

You can also use the Summary view to get an overview of all configured status transitions across roles and types.

Wrapping up: More information on how to set up and customize your OpenProject

You have now learned what status, role and workflow mean in OpenProject and how to set up status transitions to support your project and task management. Here’s a quick overview of the tips in this article:

• Before creating a workflow, make sure you have the needed role, status and work package type.
• When creating a new role, copy an existing workflow to save time.

More information on how to set up your OpenProject instance can be found in the system admin guide – on this page you will find a guide to create custom workflows.

OpenProject is an open source project management tool with a wide range of features and a powerful set of customization options. It offers you the tool to create a custom project management just as you need it. And once it’s set up, working with status transitions and other custom features and actions will be fun because it will work easily and be crowned with success.

With the upcoming release of OpenProject 17.3, we are introducing a major upgrade to the Backlog module – thoughtfully designed to make your agile workflows smoother, more intuitive, and more powerful than ever.

We know that change can sometimes feel overwhelming, so we want to walk you through everything ahead of time, explain the reasoning behind each decision, and make sure you feel fully prepared and confident when 17.3 lands.

Here is what is coming with 17.3:

A fresh new look

The Backlogs module is getting a visual refresh. The new design is cleaner and built to help you focus on what matters most – delivering great work.

A smarter layout for agile teams

We have reorganized the layout so that the Backlog now appears on the left and your Sprints on the right. This mirrors the natural flow of agile practices – from backlog refinement on the left to sprint planning on the right – making the process feel more intuitive for your team.

We understand that this flip in layout might take a moment to get used to, especially if you have been working with the different arrangement for a while. In future releases both sections will become fully resizable, so you can adjust the split to suit your preferences. We are also planning multi-select dropdowns so you can zoom in on a specific sprint at a glance – more flexibility is on the way!

Your backlog, automatically populated

No more manually adding work packages to the backlog one by one. In 17.3, your backlog will automatically be populated based on the work packages in your project. You can easily prioritize by placing the most important items at the top – and with just two clicks via the new context menu, you can move anything straight to the top of the backlog. We are also planning backlog buckets and advanced filters in a future version to give you even more ways to organize and structure your work.

What about your existing backlog and sprint buckets?

Your existing buckets are not going anywhere – we will automatically migrate all of them as part of the 17.3 update, so nothing will be lost. Here is what to expect: in 17.3, both your previous backlog buckets and sprint buckets will be visible together on the right-hand side of the new layout. Please think of it as a transitional step – all your existing structure is preserved and fully accessible. Looking ahead to 17.4, we are planning to introduce dedicated backlog buckets on the left-hand side, giving you the ability to sort and organize your backlog with even greater flexibility.

In the meantime, your buckets will be neatly sorted so they are easy to navigate: buckets with start and end dates are sorted chronologically with the most recent ones appearing at the top, while buckets without dates are sorted alphanumerically.

Automated sprint boards

Starting from 17.3, you will have the possibility to start and complete a sprint. Starting a sprint is now even more powerful. When you kick off a sprint, OpenProject will automatically generate a dedicated sprint board – replacing the previous task board. This board gives you a precise view of your sprint scope and lets you filter by any work package attribute, so your team always has exactly the information they need, right at their fingertips.

There will be many new features coming to the boards soon and in case you are interested in learning more about it, please check out our blog article presenting the future of agile way of working in OpenProject.

A smooth sprint completion flow

Wrapping up a sprint is now just a click away. Hit the “Complete Sprint” button when you are ready, and OpenProject will guide you through moving any remaining work packages - automatically - to the next sprint or back to the backlog. No loose ends, no manual cleanup.

What should you do to prepare?

Nothing special is required from your side before the update. We recommend taking a few minutes to familiarize yourself with the new layout description above – especially the new positioning of the Backlog and Sprint panels – so the first time you open the module after the update, it already feels familiar.

We will also be providing updated documentation as part of the 17.3 release to support you every step of the way.

What is coming in future?

We are genuinely excited about these improvements and believe they will make a real difference for agile teams using OpenProject. This is just the beginning. Further improvements will be released every month. If you would like to understand where we are heading, please take a look at our agile product vision or at our detailed roadmap.

As always, your feedback is important to us. If you have questions or thoughts, do not hesitate to contact us to share your feedback and experience.

Thank you for being part of the OpenProject Community. The best is yet to come!

Caution

Atlassian has announced that Jira Data Center will reach end of life on March 28, 2029. After this date, Data Center licenses and apps will expire and become read-only, leaving cloud hosting as the only supported option.

Teams around the world are looking for alternatives to Jira, whether due to changing project requirements, a preference for open source solutions or rising costs. However, switching tools is often easier said than done – especially if a seamless migration solution is not readily available. We at OpenProject are currently developing a Jira migration tool to meet this need. With version 17.2 in February 2026, it has been released under feature flag – meaning it is in its final testing phase and soon to be released to our users.

The challenge: Migrating from Jira to OpenProject

For many teams, Jira has long been the project management tool of choice. In many cases, simply out of habit and a lack of time to start over. Especially since Atlassian continues to raise prices and “lock-in” users into their cloud offering, more and more organizations are rethinking their options and looking for cost-effective open source alternatives that are trustworthy and feature-rich.

However, switching from Jira to OpenProject presents challenges:

• Time constraints – teams often don’t have the resources to manually migrate their projects.
• Technical complexity – a migration tool must be able to handle issues, work logs and custom fields.
• Lack of ready-made solutions – until now, there was no specific importer tool that guides the user through a migration process.

The solution: The Jira Migrator, official migration wizard from OpenProject

In current beta version, the Jira Migrator is able to import the following basic data:

• Projects
• Issues (name, title, description, attachments)
• Users (name, email, project membership)
• Statuses
• Types

With upcoming releases, we aim to also include importing:

• Workflows
• Custom fields
• Issue relations
• Permissions

Currently, we only support Jira Server/Data Center versions 10.x and 11.x. Cloud instances are not supported at this time.

See our documentation to learn how to experiment with the Jira Migrator in beta version. You might also take a look at our best practices for Jira migrations.

Warning

Please be aware that right now (March 2026), this feature is still under active development. We know that many users are eagerly awaiting the release, and we are working hard to provide a high-quality migration tool soon.

Watch this video to learn how the OpenProject Jira Migrator will support teams in their Jira exit:

We at OpenProject want to help finding migration solutions

At OpenProject, we want to support solutions that make migration easier. Many teams want to make the switch but don’t have the time or technical skills to do so. Which is why, in the past months, the OpenProject core team was quite busy working on a Jira Migrator.

To support the development of the official migration tool, we are collecting anonymized data samples. This data helps test and validate import capabilities across different Jira and Confluence configurations. Please reach out to us if you want to donate your data, we will sign an NDA to ensure confidentiality.

OpenProject 17.2 has been released and introduces several improvements across the platform. This release opens new possibilities for integrating AI into your project workflows, improves transparency on the Project Overview page, and continues our work on usability and accessibility.

One highlight of this release is the introduction of the MCP Server, which enables secure connections between OpenProject and AI systems while keeping full control over how project data is accessed.

In this article, we highlight the most important changes and what they mean for your daily work. As always, please see our release notes that contain the complete list of features, changes, and bug fixes.

A quick article navigation:

• Bring AI to your projects with secure MCP Server (Professional plan and higher)
• Reusable meeting templates (Basic plan and higher)
• Project Overview improvements with budget widgets and improved accessibility
• Comment fields for project attributes
• PDF export improvements
• Require login before opening external links (Premium plan and higher)
• UX/UI updates with the Primer design system
• Migration, installation, updates and support

Bring AI to your projects with secure MCP Server (Professional plan and higher)

Artificial intelligence is quickly becoming part of everyday work. Teams are exploring AI assistants that can answer questions, summarize information, and help analyze project data.

Many organizations are therefore asking the same question: How can we bring AI into our project workflows without losing control over our data and systems?

With OpenProject 17.2, we introduce the MCP Server, a new capability that enables secure connections between OpenProject and AI systems.

The MCP Server implements the Model Context Protocol (MCP) and exposes OpenProject’s APIv3 resources as MCP-compatible endpoints. This allows external tools, including large language models (LLMs) and other MCP clients, to access structured project data from OpenProject in a controlled way.

With this connection in place, AI assistants can interact with real project context. For example, they can summarize project status, analyze dependencies between work packages, or support planning workflows based on up-to-date information from OpenProject.

At the same time, control remains fully in your hands. The MCP Server integrates with OpenProject’s authentication mechanisms, including OAuth2, API tokens, and external OpenID Connect providers. Administrators can configure the server directly in OpenProject and control aspects such as response formats and response volume.

The MCP Server was sponsored and developed with the support of Mercedes-AMG, who are actively using it in their OpenProject environment. Their collaboration helped shape the feature based on real-world requirements and demonstrates how large organizations can benefit from securely connecting AI workflows to their project data.

Administrators can configure the MCP Server directly in the OpenProject administration interface and control aspects such as response formats and response volumes. This allows organizations to decide how their project data is exposed and how external tools interact with it.

To learn about how to use the MCP server, please see our documentation.

Note

The MCP Server is available as an Enterprise add-on in the Professional plan and higher. See our pricing page and contact us for more information on upgrading to a higher plan.

Reusable meeting templates (Basic plan and higher)

Preparing meetings often involves recreating the same agenda structure again and again. With OpenProject 17.2, administrators can now define reusable meeting templates that provide a predefined agenda layout for their teams.

Instead of starting from scratch, users can select a template when creating a meeting. The agenda will automatically include predefined sections and items.

This saves time when preparing meetings and helps teams reuse proven formats for discussions and decision-making.

Note

The reusable meeting templates are available as an Enterprise add-on in the Basic plan and higher. See our pricing page and contact us for more information on upgrading to a higher plan.

Project Overview improvements with budget widgets and improved accessibility

OpenProject 17.2 enhances the Project Overview page to provide clearer financial insights, easier editing, and improved accessibility.

Budget widgets for financial insights

Project managers and stakeholders can now see key financial indicators directly on the Overview page.

New widgets display information such as:

• planned budget
• actual costs
• spent budget
• remaining budget

Visual breakdowns by cost type and recent monthly actuals help teams understand financial trends directly within the project context.

Inline editing for project description and status

The project description and project status widgets on the Overview tab can now be edited directly inline. Authorized users can update information directly where it is displayed.

Improved accessibility of Project Overview and dashboard widgets

We have significantly improved the accessibility of widgets on both the Project Overview and Project dashboard pages. Widgets are now fully operable via keyboard, provide clearer structural semantics for screen readers, and follow WCAG 2.1 AA guidelines for focus management, labeling, and navigation order.

These improvements ensure that project information and controls are accessible to all users, including those relying on assistive technologies.

Comment fields for project attributes

Project attributes often require additional explanation. For example, a chosen value may depend on assumptions, governance decisions, or project-specific context.

With OpenProject 17.2, administrators can now enable comment fields for project attributes. This allows users to document the reasoning behind selected attribute values directly where the attribute is maintained.

Comments follow the same permission logic as the attribute itself and are:

• displayed alongside the attribute on the Project Overview page
• tracked in project activity
• included in exports
• accessible via the API

This provides additional transparency and helps teams better understand important project decisions.

PDF export improvements

OpenProject 17.2 enhances PDF exports to provide more comprehensive reporting.

Work package queries can now include relationship columns, which are exported as structured tables in the PDF report. This ensures that dependencies between work packages remain visible in exported documentation.

In addition, WebP images embedded in work package descriptions are now supported in exported PDFs.

Require login before opening external links (Premium plan and higher)

Following external links inside collaboration platforms can sometimes pose security risks.

Building on the external link safety options introduced in OpenProject 17.1, OpenProject 17.2 adds the option to require users to be logged in before opening external links.

When this setting is enabled, users must authenticate before they can follow external links.

Note

This feature is available as an Enterprise add-on in the Premium plan and higher. See our pricing page and contact us for more information on upgrading to a higher plan.

UX/UI updates with the Primer design system

OpenProject continues the transition to the Primer design system, helping unify the user interface across the application.

Backlogs module update

The Backlogs module has been updated using Primer components. This results in a cleaner layout and more consistent interaction patterns.

Work packages can now also be viewed in a split screen, allowing teams to manage backlog items while reviewing work package details.

Improvements in administration interfaces

Administrative interfaces for Custom Fields, Versions, and Groups have also been aligned with the Primer design system.

OpenProject 17.2: Migration, installation, updates and support

Follow the upgrade guide for the packaged installation or Docker installation to update your OpenProject installation to OpenProject 17.2. We update your hosted OpenProject environments (Enterprise cloud) today, March 11, 2026.

You will find more information about all new features and changes in our Release notes and 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 will be happy to support you personally.

• New to OpenProject? To test all features of OpenProject 17.2 right away, create a 14 days free trial instance for our OpenProject Enterprise cloud.
• Prefer to run OpenProject 17.2 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 (all plans).

Credits

A very special thank you goes to Mercedes-AMG for sponsoring the MCP server feature and supporting its development. Your collaboration and real-world feedback helped shape this functionality and demonstrate how large organizations can benefit from securely connecting AI workflows to their project data in OpenProject.

We would also like to thank Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin, 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 Alexander Aleschenko, Gabor Alexovics, Jörg Mollowitz and Александр Татаринцев.

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:

• Adam Siemienski, for a great number of translations into Polish.
• Mehmet Coşkun, for a great number of translations into Turkish.
• Liangzdz, for a great number of translations into Chinese Simplified.

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.

OpenProject offers both a powerful Community edition and Enterprise plans tailored to different organizational needs. This often raises the question of which option is the best choice for your team or organization. While the Community edition is fully functional on its own, some teams require professional support, specific Enterprise add-ons, or Cloud hosting.

In this article, you will learn about the differences between Community and Enterprise, and how to easily upgrade or get started with an Enterprise plan.

Quick navigation:

• Why does OpenProject offer an Enterprise edition?
• What is the difference between the Community edition and the Enterprise edition?
• What are Enterprise add-ons?
• Why does OpenProject offer different Enterprise plans?
• How can you upgrade from the Community edition to OpenProject Enterprise?
• How can you get started with OpenProject Enterprise?

Why does OpenProject offer an Enterprise edition?

Since OpenProject is free (as defined by the Free Software Foundation) and open source software, you can download and run the software on your own infrastructure. It can be used free of charge in the Community edition. This edition is a fully functional project and task management solution and is used by teams and organizations of all sizes.

At the same time, some organizations rely on personal, reliable support when running OpenProject in business-critical or complex environments. Providing this kind of professional support requires dedicated resources and clear responsibilities. The Enterprise edition exists to offer exactly that, while ensuring that OpenProject remains sustainable and fully open source for everyone.

What is the difference between the Community edition and the Enterprise edition?

The OpenProject Community edition is free to use, fully open source, and provides a comprehensive set of project and task management features. It can be used without restrictions on the number of users or projects and is suitable for many teams and organizations as it is.

The Enterprise edition builds on the Community edition. It adds professional support and optional Enterprise add-ons for organizations with higher or more specific requirements, for example when OpenProject is used in business-critical environments or when additional services are needed. The Enterprise edition does not replace the Community edition, but extends it.

In short, the difference is not about access to the software itself. Both editions are fully open source and highly functional. The key difference lies in professional support, Enterprise add-ons, and additional service options.

	Community edition	Enterprise edition
License	Open source	Open source
Costs	Free of charge	Paid plans
Core functionality	Fully available	Fully available
Enterprise add-ons	Not included	Available
Professional support	Community-based	Included
Hosting options	Self-managed	Self-managed or hosted by OpenProject
Typical use cases	Teams with basic project and task management requirements	Organizations that need professional support or have specific requirements

Important

Support is the essence of OpenProject Enterprise: It is important to know that while the OpenProject Community edition is free and fully functional, it does not include personal support. Upgrade to get reliable, high-touch support from OpenProject senior support engineers with expert knowledge about running the software in business-critical environments. We are English, German, and French speaking!

What are Enterprise add-ons?

Enterprise add-ons are optional extensions that build on top of the OpenProject Community edition. They are designed to support more advanced or specific requirements that go beyond basic project and task management needs.

All Enterprise add-ons are developed as open source software. They are not a separate product, but integrate seamlessly into OpenProject and can be enabled as part of an Enterprise plan. Importantly, the Community edition remains fully functional without these add-ons.

Enterprise add-ons are therefore best understood as complementary enhancements. They allow organizations to extend OpenProject where needed, without changing the core principles of openness, transparency, and long-term maintainability. Still, the main benefit of the OpenProject Enterprise edition is the professional support.

Watch this video to learn about our current Enterprise add-ons:

Community first

OpenProject values a balance between community spirit and financial sustainability, which is a key element in OpenProject’s high user-friendliness and, for example, its comprehensive documentation, available free of charge to all users. One example of OpenProject’s commitment to the Community is that some Enterprise add-ons are released for the community edition over time.

As an example, here’s a list of Enterprise add-ons that have been released to the Community edition in the past:

• Agile boards
• Attribute highlighting
• Graphs on project overview page
• Multi-select custom fields
• Display custom field columns/filters in project lists

Why does OpenProject offer different Enterprise plans?

Organizations using OpenProject vary widely in size, structure, and requirements. Some mainly need professional support to operate OpenProject reliably, while others require specific Enterprise add-ons, additional services, or long-term guarantees for complex or regulated environments.

To address these different needs, OpenProject offers multiple Enterprise plans. This makes it possible to keep entry prices low for organizations that primarily need support, while also offering plans tailored to larger organizations with more specific or demanding requirements. The goal is not to bundle everything into a single plan, but to provide appropriate options for different use cases. Enterprise plans therefore reflect a fair and flexible approach: organizations only pay for the level of support and add-ons they actually need.

The introduction of different Enterprise plans is documented in the OpenProject 16.0 release notes.

Important

All OpenProject editions are fully built on GPLv3-licensed free and open source software and OpenProject is not an open core model. Enterprise plans are paid because they include professional support and services, not because the software itself is closed or proprietary.

How can you upgrade from the Community edition to OpenProject Enterprise?

Upgrading from the OpenProject Community edition to an Enterprise plan is straightforward and does not require a migration or a new installation. Your existing data, projects, and configurations remain unchanged.

Enterprise plans can be evaluated via a trial that activates the Enterprise add-ons and professional support for a limited time. If the trial ends without a subscription, the installation automatically returns to the Community edition.

This makes it easy to explore OpenProject Enterprise at your own pace and decide whether professional support or specific Enterprise add-ons are the right fit for your organization. Learn more about upgrading to Enterprise edition.

How can you get started with OpenProject Enterprise?

If you want to explore OpenProject Enterprise in more detail, there are several ways to get started. You can review the available Enterprise plans to understand which options best fit your organization’s needs, including professional support and optional Enterprise add-ons.

If you are already using the Community edition, you can start an Enterprise trial directly from your installation to evaluate the Enterprise add-ons and support in your own environment. Organizations that are new to OpenProject can also choose an Enterprise plan from the start, including hosted options.

If you have questions or specific requirements, the OpenProject team is available to help you find the right setup and plan for your organization.

Contact us.

At OpenProject - the open source project management platform trusted by thousands of teams worldwide - we are making a clear statement: we want to be your sovereign go-to solution for agile teams. We are excited to give you an outlook on what is coming in 2026, in order to further improve agile ways of working within OpenProject.

Co-creation with our Community

We have been exploring, through many interviews with our current and future users - how the backlog refinement and sprint planning experience in OpenProject could evolve to better support agile collaboration. We also analyzed the pain points Jira users experience when working in agile teams. This helped us better understand your needs. We used those insights to provide first prototypes of redesigned backlogs and boards, which were then tested with users. Within an open source project software like OpenProject, you have the possibility to shape the product together with us. This is also why we are releasing our prototypes within this blog post and looking forward to your feedback.

Improved backlog refinement and sprint planning

The goal of the new concept is to make backlog refinement, sprint planning and usage of agile boards more intuitive, structured, and scalable for growing teams and enterprises, especially for teams migrating from Jira to OpenProject, who are working with Scrum, Kanban or SAFe. By improving how backlog items are organized and how teams interact with their sprint planning view, we aim to create a smoother and more flexible agile experience in OpenProject. Let’s take a closer look at how these ideas could support teams during agile ceremonies.

Automated backlog

At the beginning of April 2026, we plan to release the first iteration of our redesigned Backlog module. You will then automatically see all work packages from your project within the backlog without the need of adding them manually to the backlog. In case you don’t want certain work package types to be automatically visible in the backlog you will later on get a possibility to exclude them from the automated backlog.

Structuring large backlogs with backlog buckets

Have you ever struggled with structuring a backlog with hundreds of work packages? We have a solution for you! The updated backlog design will introduce clearer ways to organize backlog items using backlog buckets. You can use buckets to sort your work packages in a way which will help you keep an overview over the backlog and your team’s priorities. You just create buckets which are relevant to you and you easily drag & drop the work packages to newly created buckets. With this improvement, you can easily sort e.g. your “Low hanging fruits”, “Priority bugs” or work packages which are “Ready for development”.

Fast lane for moving work packages

We are also planning to implement improved ordering mechanisms for work packages (move up, move to top, move down, move to bottom, or move to sprint). With one click, you will be able to easily move your to-do’s to a relevant bucket or sprint. Less scrolling back and forth. This makes it faster to manage large backlogs and keep priorities where they belong.

Backlog filters and saved views

Of course you will also have a possibility to filter your backlog based on all attributes, incl. custom fields. In case you would like to re-use a certain view in future, you will be able to save it as a public or private view. This will allow you to quickly navigate to the set of work packages that is relevant to you and where you would like to zoom in.

Sprint planning

With the backlog view on the left and sprints on the right, you can see your sprints and backlogs on one screen without scrolling. This view will boost your productivity during sprint planning. The improved layout makes it easier to see what work is ready to be pulled into the next iteration.

At a glance, key information about each backlog work package is visible:

• Name
• ID
• Type
• Status
• Assignee
• Number of story points
• Priority

You will have the possibility to not only define the sprint scope but to also highlight the sprint goal in order to align your team, as well as to set sprint dates.

Active sprints and sprint boards

Once you’ve started your sprint, you will automatically get a sprint board, showing you the planned sprint scope. This is your team’s go-to place during the sprint. With this overview, you will always see who is working on which topic and how the team is making progress.

Multiple active sprints within one project

Do you have various teams working within one project? Do they want to start separate sprints in parallel? No problem! OpenProject will allow admins to define if a project should be a single-sprint or multi-sprint project. This brings more clarity to your teams and their sprints, at the same time allowing them to work within the same backlog.

Board filters and saved views

Once the sprint begins, teams rely on boards to manage their day-to-day work. The new concepts explores how sprint boards could provide a clearer way to track progress. With introduced filters, you will be able to adjust the board view to your needs. You can filter for any kind of attributes, incl. custom fields. In case you would like to re-use some of the filter sets, you can always save the view as a private or public view.

Configurable work package cards

The redesigned board behavior is intended to make daily work management more intuitive. Clearly structured work items and the board layout help teams stay focused on progress and flow while reducing visual clutter. With the configure board view, teams could adjust the card size and choose which information should be displayed on each card. The design illustrates three levels of card configuration: compact, regular, and full; giving users flexibility in how much information is displayed.

Status mapping for complex workflows

The concept will also introduce the ability to map multiple workflow statuses to a single column, giving teams more flexibility in how they visualize their workflow. This will be a booster for teams working with complex workflows.

Work in progress limits

Would you like your team to deliver faster? Focusing on the most important topics and reducing work in progress is an essential productivity booster for agile teams. OpenProject will support you on this path through work-in-progress limits which can be set for each column individually.

Swimlanes

Users will get a possibility to enable swimlanes and configure them based on attributes such as parent work item (e.g. epic), assignee, version, component, priority, or type, allowing teams to organize work in a way that best supports their workflow. Swimlanes will provide your team with a very structured board view.

Agile reports

To support monitoring and improvement, teams can also access reports designed to help track, analyze, and optimize performance during and after a sprint. These will be very helpful during retrospectives. We are planning multiple reports and graphs:

• sprint reports
• burndown charts
• burnup charts
• velocity charts
• created vs. resolved chart
• cumulative flow diagram

Sharing

Especially within enterprises, when working based on SAFe principles, most teams should be aligned on sprint start and end dates. Already within our first agile release (currently planned for April 2026), we will allow users to share sprints through the whole instance or within a certain portfolio or program. This means that teams working with shared sprints will share the sprint dates and goal, but still can define their own sprint scope relevant for the team. Under the administration settings, sharing sprints across projects can be enabled or disabled. Projects can also be configured to only receive shared sprints.

Versions and sprints

Soon, you will be able to associate work packages with versions and sprints at the same time. An epic then can be planned for a release using the version field and can be planned for a certain sprint at the same time. In Q2 2026, we are also going to introduce an additional version field, “Observed in versions”, which — in addition to the version that defines the release version — allows you to track the versions in which a bug occurred.

Kanban boards

In case you prefer to work using Kanban methodology, you will of course have a possibility to create Kanban boards, also multi-project Kanban boards, including all the new functionalities described in the article, like swimlanes, work-in-progress limits, filters, saved views. etc.

Global Backlog module for SAFe organizations

The planned global Backlog module will help enterprises to manage big agile portfolios. Especially for SAFe organizations, this might be the go-to place for navigation between sprints and board. Among others, you will also have a possibility to filter for the PI (Product Increment) scope or for all dependencies across the whole portfolio.

And all that is coming to OpenProject in 2026!

These concepts are all part of our ongoing design exploration to improve agile workflows in OpenProject. While not all elements are part of the product yet, they represent the direction we are exploring to better support teams working with Scrum, Kanban or SAFe.

We’re continuing to refine these ideas and look forward to sharing future updates as the designs evolve. In case you would like to provide your feedback on those prototypes, please feel free to comment on the work packages within our roadmap. We would love to hear from you!

Stay tuned for our future agile releases!

Making project collaboration possible wherever work happens has always been an important goal for OpenProject. Many teams do not work exclusively at their desks. They need to work on construction sites, in meetings, traveling, or simply away from their primary workstation.

With the OpenProject Mobile app, we aim to support these scenarios by enabling teams to stay connected to their projects directly from their mobile devices.

The mobile app is currently available as a beta version and continues to evolve as we refine the experience and expand its capabilities. While it already supports many important workflows for working on the go, it is still a work in progress. Our product team is continuously improving features, usability, and performance based on feedback from the OpenProject Community.

Recent improvements also ensure that the app works smoothly on tablets, offering a more flexible way to interact with OpenProject across different device types.

In this article, we want to share where the mobile app stands today and what you can already do with it.

Supporting project work on the go

The OpenProject Mobile app is designed as a companion to the web experience. Instead of replicating the full desktop interface, the mobile app focuses on the most important interactions users need while away from their desks.

With the mobile app, you can:

• Browse projects and work packages
• Update details such as status, priority, or assignee
• Write comments and collaborate with team members
• Track and log work time
• Have a centralised and personal dashboard
• Receive and react to notifications about comments, mentions, and work package changes

These capabilities allow teams to quickly respond to changes, update tasks, and keep collaboration moving, even when they are not using their primary workstation.

Manage work packages directly from your phone

Work packages are at the center of collaboration in OpenProject, and the mobile app makes them easily accessible while on the move. Within the app, you can view and update work packages across projects and interact with tasks just as you would expect in day-to-day project work.

Users can:

• Change attributes such as status, assignee, or priority
• Comment on work packages and mention colleagues
• Upload attachments directly from their device
• Manage watchers and task relations
• Work packages index page in the OpenProject mobile app
• Work package details on the overview tab in the OpenProject mobile app

Designed for mobile workflows

Mobile devices come with their own strengths, and the OpenProject Mobile app takes advantage of them to support quick and simple interactions. Some features are specifically optimized for mobile usage, including:

• Quick work package creation through a simplified interface
• Direct photo and video capture and uploads from the device camera
• Touch-friendly navigation optimized for smaller screens
• Local notifications to stay informed about project updates
• Focus-mode timers to track time spent on tasks

Overview of projects and tasks

The mobile app also provides an easy way to explore projects and stay informed about ongoing work.

Users can browse projects, portfolios, and programs, view project details, and navigate to related work packages. Together with the personal home screen and notification center, this gives users a quick overview of work packages and updates that require their attention.

Expanding the experience across devices

While the mobile app was initially designed for smartphones, many users rely on tablets for meetings, workshops, or on-site work.

Recent improvements ensure that the app adapts well to tablet devices, offering a more comfortable layout and better use of larger screens. This allows teams to review work packages and projects in split screens and collaborate more easily during discussions or presentations.

As development continues, improving the multi-device experience remains an important focus area.

A growing part of the OpenProject ecosystem

The OpenProject Mobile app is available for iOS and Android and connects directly to your OpenProject instance. As a beta product, it continues to evolve alongside the rest of the platform.

Our team is currently working on further improvements such as:

• Real-time push notifications
• Deep linking to work packages and projects
• Additional collaboration capabilities
• New modules of the app, like meetings or wikis, coming to mobile
• Continuous usability and performance improvements

Each iteration brings the mobile experience closer to the flexibility teams expect when managing projects across different environments.

Try it and share your feedback

Because the mobile app is still in beta, feedback from the OpenProject Community plays an important role in shaping its future.

If you are already using OpenProject, we encourage you to try the mobile app and explore how it supports your workflows on the go. Your feedback helps us identify improvements, prioritize new features, and continue refining the experience.

We look forward to hearing how you use the mobile app in your daily project work. Here is how you can get in touch.

We’re excited to announce the release of OpenProject integration app versions 3.0.0 and 2.11.2 for Nextcloud! ✨

What’s new

This release focuses on improving compatibility with newer Nextcloud versions, enhancing reliability, and smoothing out the overall collaboration experience.

Support for Nextcloud 33

Version 3.0.0 introduces support for Nextcloud 33, including necessary adjustments to breaking changes in the Files frontend API.

Note

This is a breaking change update. Please ensure compatibility before upgrading.

Improvements

• Added debug logging for OpenProject API requests to simplify troubleshooting

Bug fixes

• Fixed handling of projects with unknown parent projects
• Ensured HTTPS is enforced for Nextcloud base URLs in OpenProject API requests
• Resolved broken guest access to Talk rooms for Nextcloud 32 and above

Update recommendation

We recommend updating via the Nextcloud App Store to take advantage of the latest fixes and improvements.

Thank you

A big thank you to the Nextcloud team for the continued collaboration and partnership! 🚀

OpenProject 17.2 has been released and introduces several improvements across the platform. This release opens new possibilities for integrating AI into your project workflows, improves transparency on the Project Overview page, and continues our work on usability and accessibility.

One highlight of this release is the introduction of the MCP Server, which enables secure connections between OpenProject and AI systems while keeping full control over how project data is accessed.

In this article, we highlight the most important changes and what they mean for your daily work. As always, please see our release notes that contain the complete list of features, changes, and bug fixes.

A quick article navigation:

• Bring AI to your projects with secure MCP Server (Professional plan and higher)
• Reusable meeting templates (Basic plan and higher)
• Project Overview improvements with budget widgets and improved accessibility
• Comment fields for project attributes
• PDF export improvements
• Require login before opening external links (Premium plan and higher)
• UX/UI updates with the Primer design system
• Migration, installation, updates and support

Bring AI to your projects with secure MCP Server (Professional plan and higher)

Artificial intelligence is quickly becoming part of everyday work. Teams are exploring AI assistants that can answer questions, summarize information, and help analyze project data.

Many organizations are therefore asking the same question: How can we bring AI into our project workflows without losing control over our data and systems?

With OpenProject 17.2, we introduce the MCP Server, a new capability that enables secure connections between OpenProject and AI systems.

The MCP Server implements the Model Context Protocol (MCP) and exposes OpenProject’s APIv3 resources as MCP-compatible endpoints. This allows external tools, including large language models (LLMs) and other MCP clients, to access structured project data from OpenProject in a controlled way.

With this connection in place, AI assistants can interact with real project context. For example, they can summarize project status, analyze dependencies between work packages, or support planning workflows based on up-to-date information from OpenProject.

At the same time, control remains fully in your hands. The MCP Server integrates with OpenProject’s authentication mechanisms, including OAuth2, API tokens, and external OpenID Connect providers. Administrators can configure the server directly in OpenProject and control aspects such as response formats and response volume.

The MCP Server was sponsored and developed with the support of Mercedes-AMG, who are actively using it in their OpenProject environment. Their collaboration helped shape the feature based on real-world requirements and demonstrates how large organizations can benefit from securely connecting AI workflows to their project data.

Administrators can configure the MCP Server directly in the OpenProject administration interface and control aspects such as response formats and response volumes. This allows organizations to decide how their project data is exposed and how external tools interact with it.

To learn about how to use the MCP server, please see our documentation.

Note

The MCP Server is available as an Enterprise add-on in the Professional plan and higher. See our pricing page and contact us for more information on upgrading to a higher plan.

Reusable meeting templates (Basic plan and higher)

Preparing meetings often involves recreating the same agenda structure again and again. With OpenProject 17.2, administrators can now define reusable meeting templates that provide a predefined agenda layout for their teams.

Instead of starting from scratch, users can select a template when creating a meeting. The agenda will automatically include predefined sections and items.

This saves time when preparing meetings and helps teams reuse proven formats for discussions and decision-making.

Note

The reusable meeting templates are available as an Enterprise add-on in the Basic plan and higher. See our pricing page and contact us for more information on upgrading to a higher plan.

Project Overview improvements with budget widgets and improved accessibility

OpenProject 17.2 enhances the Project Overview page to provide clearer financial insights, easier editing, and improved accessibility.

Budget widgets for financial insights

Project managers and stakeholders can now see key financial indicators directly on the Overview page.

New widgets display information such as:

• planned budget
• actual costs
• spent budget
• remaining budget

Visual breakdowns by cost type and recent monthly actuals help teams understand financial trends directly within the project context.

Inline editing for project description and status

The project description and project status widgets on the Overview tab can now be edited directly inline. Authorized users can update information directly where it is displayed.

Improved accessibility of Project Overview and dashboard widgets

We have significantly improved the accessibility of widgets on both the Project Overview and Project dashboard pages. Widgets are now fully operable via keyboard, provide clearer structural semantics for screen readers, and follow WCAG 2.1 AA guidelines for focus management, labeling, and navigation order.

These improvements ensure that project information and controls are accessible to all users, including those relying on assistive technologies.

Comment fields for project attributes

Project attributes often require additional explanation. For example, a chosen value may depend on assumptions, governance decisions, or project-specific context.

With OpenProject 17.2, administrators can now enable comment fields for project attributes. This allows users to document the reasoning behind selected attribute values directly where the attribute is maintained.

Comments follow the same permission logic as the attribute itself and are:

• displayed alongside the attribute on the Project Overview page
• tracked in project activity
• included in exports
• accessible via the API

This provides additional transparency and helps teams better understand important project decisions.

PDF export improvements

OpenProject 17.2 enhances PDF exports to provide more comprehensive reporting.

Work package queries can now include relationship columns, which are exported as structured tables in the PDF report. This ensures that dependencies between work packages remain visible in exported documentation.

In addition, WebP images embedded in work package descriptions are now supported in exported PDFs.

Require login before opening external links (Premium plan and higher)

Following external links inside collaboration platforms can sometimes pose security risks.

Building on the external link safety options introduced in OpenProject 17.1, OpenProject 17.2 adds the option to require users to be logged in before opening external links.

When this setting is enabled, users must authenticate before they can follow external links.

Note

This feature is available as an Enterprise add-on in the Premium plan and higher. See our pricing page and contact us for more information on upgrading to a higher plan.

UX/UI updates with the Primer design system

OpenProject continues the transition to the Primer design system, helping unify the user interface across the application.

Backlogs module update

The Backlogs module has been updated using Primer components. This results in a cleaner layout and more consistent interaction patterns.

Work packages can now also be viewed in a split screen, allowing teams to manage backlog items while reviewing work package details.

Improvements in administration interfaces

Administrative interfaces for Custom Fields, Versions, and Groups have also been aligned with the Primer design system.

OpenProject 17.2: Migration, installation, updates and support

Follow the upgrade guide for the packaged installation or Docker installation to update your OpenProject installation to OpenProject 17.2. We update your hosted OpenProject environments (Enterprise cloud) today, March 11, 2026.

You will find more information about all new features and changes in our Release notes and 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 will be happy to support you personally.

• New to OpenProject? To test all features of OpenProject 17.2 right away, create a 14 days free trial instance for our OpenProject Enterprise cloud.
• Prefer to run OpenProject 17.2 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 (all plans).

Credits

A very special thank you goes to Mercedes-AMG for sponsoring the MCP server feature and supporting its development. Your collaboration and real-world feedback helped shape this functionality and demonstrate how large organizations can benefit from securely connecting AI workflows to their project data in OpenProject.

We would also like to thank Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin, 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 Alexander Aleschenko, Gabor Alexovics, Jörg Mollowitz and Александр Татаринцев.

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:

• Adam Siemienski, for a great number of translations into Polish.
• Mehmet Coşkun, for a great number of translations into Turkish.
• Liangzdz, for a great number of translations into Chinese Simplified.

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.

Driving user adoption and leading change when moving from Jira to OpenProject

When organizations decide to migrate from Jira to OpenProject, the initial focus often lies on technical aspects such as data transfer or use case mapping. While these elements are essential, I consistently observe that the greatest challenge is not technological. The real success factor is organization’s ability to navigate change initiatives and guiding people on their journey of change.

Co-creating the future way of working

At OpenProject, we approach migrations with the understanding that it’s success depends on thoughtful change management. Rather than imposing a new system, we work with organizations to co-create their future within OpenProject. This starts with:

• Identifying stakeholders and understanding their way of working, their needs, processes and pains.
• Mapping the use cases that shape their daily work.
• Translating existing workflows into OpenProject wherever possible and,
• Exploring the underlying needs together, when no direct equivalent exists.

At OpenProject we approach product development with a very user-centric mindset. Whenever I guide companies in the migration process from Jira to OpenProject, I always try to involve the real users from the very beginning. I go on my users’ island and try to understand their needs. I do mean “needs” and not solutions. It is not user’s but our product teams’ responsibility to define a solution based on users needs. Through rapid prototyping methods, our teams provide tangible solutions and validate them with users. This iterative and collaborative process fosters ownership, builds trust, and naturally creates internal advocates for the new platform. It helps us to define solutions, which really address users’ needs.

Our product development is fully transparent. You can read each single acceptance criteria we define for our user stories. We actively seek feedback from our users. Using an open source product gives you the opportunity to shape the product together with us. Our community matters.

Leading change from closed source to open source

We also recognize the importance of change leadership throughout the transition. Successful change leaders listen with intent, remain curious, and treat feedback as valuable input. Creating psychological safety allows users to openly share concerns and ideas.

To further strengthen adoption, we usually encourage the development of internal champion networks. Identifying early adopters and empowering them to support their peers builds momentum across teams. Involving decision-makers early ensures alignment and sustained sponsorship. Leading change is a team sport, no matter if we talk about a 50 people team or a 150 000 people organization.

In case you would like to deep dive into the topic of leading change from closed source to open source, I recently explored this topic within a talk at FOSDEM.

Starting the transition in practice

A practical way to begin the transition is through a proof of concept (PoC) with selected teams, ideally representing key target groups.

To understand what moving from Jira to OpenProject really means, we often recommend a use case analysis. By mapping key scenarios from Jira to their OpenProject equivalents, organizations gain transparency into potential solutions, gaps, and define mitigation strategies. This structured approach transforms migration planning into a constructive, tangible and solution-oriented process. The feedback from such processes is essential for our roadmap planning and gives organizations a possibility to co-create OpenProject together with us based on their needs.

We guide users on their change journey, among others by providing customizable onboarding and training sessions. Short and focused training sessions are typically sufficient. We support organizations also with tailored enablement formats, combining administrator training on configuration and workflows with team-level sessions for daily usage and role-based training where needed.

As processes and needs become clearer, we guide teams in translating workflows and needs from Jira to OpenProject. Throughout this phase, responsive support channels and helpdesks ensure that questions are addressed quickly and confidence continues to grow.

Conclusion: From proof of concept, through migration to confident adoption

Change can be scary. Ultimately, a successful migration is not defined by completed data transfer, but by the moment teams feel confident and productive in their new workspace. By prioritizing co-creation, targeted enablement, and transparent communication, we help organizations turn a potentially challenging change initiative into an opportunity to further strengthen team collaboration and fully realize the value of OpenProject and open source.

You can co-create the future of tech if you contribute to open source products. Especially if you are decider, you can make the change happen. Start the transition to open source, but prepare it well. You don’t have to and you shouldn’t do it alone. Co-create the future together with us and your colleagues. Digital sovereignty isn’t built with code alone - it’s built with people who believe in it.

And remember… You’re not just migrating software - you’re building democracy and freedom for future generations.

How to choose the best open source project management software

Finding the right project management software for your organization can be a challenge — especially when you want a solution that is transparent, flexible, and gives you full control over your data.

Open source project management tools are increasingly popular in 2026, as many organizations look for alternatives to proprietary platforms, rising licensing costs, and cloud-only solutions. At the same time, requirements around data privacy, security, and compliance continue to grow — particularly for public institutions and regulated industries.

To help you make an informed decision, we have updated our overview of the top open source project management software in 2026. The tools listed below differ in focus and strengths: some are built for agile teams, others for software development workflows, and others for full-featured project planning across an organization.

When comparing project management software, make sure to consider:

• Feature set and supported methodologies (classic, agile, or hybrid)
• Hosting options (cloud vs. self-hosted)
• Data protection and privacy strategy
• Community activity and long-term maintenance
• Pricing and available support options

The tools listed in this article are widely used and well-established open source solutions, each with different strengths depending on your organization’s needs.

Here are our 5 top open source project management tools to consider in 2026:

1. OpenProject
2. Redmine
3. GitLab
4. Tuleap
5. Taiga

OpenProject

OpenProject is a widely used open source project management platform, licensed under GNU GPL v3.

Best for in 2026: organizations looking for a secure solution that supports classic, agile, and hybrid project workflows.

Free and open source software

The software code is freely available on GitHub. All changes to the source code are transparently traceable at any time. With OpenProject, there is no vendor lock-in.

OpenProject meets high data protection and security requirements. The company, based in Berlin, Germany, focuses on developing a secure and privacy-compliant European alternative for project management and team collaboration. Read more about security and privacy conditions at OpenProject.

Data sovereignty

With OpenProject, users retain full control over their data. With the self-installed version hosted on own servers, OpenProject offers a high level of data sovereignty. Alternatively, hosting is provided on demand on secure servers within Germany. OpenProject follows a strict privacy approach and does not rely on user tracking within the application. Read the OpenProject privacy policy.

Secure hosting

If you don’t have the capacity or knowledge to host OpenProject in your environment, the Enterprise cloud edition offers secure hosting in the EU.

Feature set

OpenProject maps the entire project lifecycle, from project planning and execution to project controlling and closure. The software supports classic, agile, and hybrid project management.

It includes extensive project management functions such as project and milestone planning (Gantt charts), task management, agile boards, meetings, project wiki, forums, time and cost tracking, budgets, and more. See OpenProject collaboration features.

Configuration

The software is flexibly configurable and can be adapted to individual requirements. With a powerful API, additional systems can be connected if required.

Part of openDesk

OpenProject is part of openDesk, an open source office and collaboration suite for the German public sector. Learn more about openDesk.

Active maintenance and development

OpenProject is continuously developed and maintained by an active developer Community. New features, improvements, and updates are released regularly. To learn more, take a look at the OpenProject roadmap.

Professional support and training

Building on extensive documentation, OpenProject offers professional support and training for organizations that require additional guidance.

Pricing

The OpenProject Community edition is free of charge and self-hosted. All essential project and task management features are included in this free version.

The Enterprise cloud and on-premises editions offer professional support as well as additional premium and security add-ons. Pricing starts from €5.95 per month per user.

OpenProject also offers a 14 days free trial to explore the Enterprise edition in practice — no credit card required, and you won’t receive unwanted marketing emails.

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Redmine

Redmine is a long-established open source project management and issue tracking tool, licensed under GNU GPL v2.

Best for in 2026: teams looking for a lightweight, self-hosted solution focused on issue tracking and extensibility through plugins.

Feature set

Redmine combines project management with strong issue tracking capabilities. It is particularly popular among technical teams who want a flexible tool for managing tasks, bugs, and workflows.

Key features include:

• Issue and task tracking
• Project and role-based access management
• Custom fields and workflows
• Wiki and documentation features
• Plugin ecosystem for extending functionality

Redmine is often chosen for its simplicity and adaptability. However, compared to more modern platforms, it may require additional configuration and plugins to cover advanced project planning features such as Gantt-based scheduling or portfolio management.

See a comparison between Redmine and OpenProject to explore the differences between both open source project management tools.

Hosting

Redmine is primarily designed for self-hosting, giving organizations full control over where their data is stored. This makes it a common choice for teams with strict infrastructure or compliance requirements.

Pricing

Redmine is free to use as open source software. Costs typically depend on hosting, maintenance, and whether professional support is provided by third-party vendors.

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GitLab

GitLab is a source code management and DevOps platform that can also be used for project planning and collaboration. It is licensed under an MIT open source license and has a clear focus on software development teams.

Best for in 2026: software development teams looking to manage code, CI/CD, and project planning in one integrated platform.

https://about.gitlab.com

Feature set

GitLab offers a broad feature set to support the entire software delivery lifecycle. In addition to version control and DevOps functionality, it includes project management features such as issue tracking, agile boards, workflows, and timelines.

GitLab is especially strong for teams that want to connect project work directly to development processes. However, features such as budgeting, cost tracking, or more advanced project portfolio management are not a core part of GitLab’s offering.

Tip

If you are not entirely convinced by the GitLab offering in terms of project management, but like its feature set, you can use OpenProject with its GitLab integration.

See a comparison between GitLab and OpenProject to explore the differences between both open source tools.

Hosting

GitLab is available both in the cloud and as a self-hosted on-premises solution. The self-managed version provides full control over your data and infrastructure.

GitLab.com, the hosted cloud offering, is primarily operated on Google Cloud infrastructure in the United States. For organizations with strict compliance requirements, hosting location and applicable regulations should be reviewed carefully.

Pricing

GitLab offers a free tier with limited features. Paid plans provide additional functionality and support, with pricing depending on the selected edition and team size. GitLab also offers a free trial for its paid plans.

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Tuleap

Tuleap is an open source project management and application lifecycle management (ALM) platform, licensed under GNU GPL.

Best for in 2026: agile software development teams that need structured planning and lifecycle management in one open source platform.

https://www.tuleap.org/

Feature set

Tuleap provides a comprehensive set of agile project management features, including task boards, backlogs, Kanban boards, burnup and burndown charts, and dashboards.

In addition to agile planning, Tuleap supports software development workflows such as test management and project tracking, making it particularly relevant for teams working in regulated or complex development environments.

For organizations looking for a broader project management approach, Tuleap’s focus on agile and ALM may feel more specialized. Traditional project management features such as Gantt-based scheduling, budgeting, or cost tracking are not as central as in other tools.

See a comparison between Tuleap and OpenProject to explore the differences between both open source project management tools.

Hosting

Tuleap is available both as a cloud solution and as a self-hosted on-premises edition.

For the premium cloud version, hosting providers are available in several regions, including France, Switzerland, the USA, the UK, Korea, and others. Organizations with specific compliance requirements should review the hosting setup carefully depending on the chosen plan.

Pricing

Tuleap does not offer a fully free cloud version. Pricing depends on the selected edition and hosting model, and a free trial is available upon request.

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Taiga

Taiga is an open source project management software whose beginnings date back to a Kaleidos hackathon in 2013. It is licensed under MPL 2.0.

Best for in 2026: agile teams looking for a simple and visually intuitive tool focused on Scrum and Kanban workflows.

https://www.taiga.io

Feature set

Taiga was created with the goal of providing an accessible and user-friendly agile project management tool for developers and designers.

It offers a comprehensive feature set for agile methodologies, including:

• Kanban boards
• Product and sprint backlogs
• Issue tracking
• Estimation tools
• Dashboards and reporting features

Taiga is well suited for teams working primarily with Scrum or Kanban. However, classic project management features such as Gantt charts, budget tracking, or broader portfolio planning are not part of its core focus.

See a comparison between Taiga and OpenProject to explore the differences between both open source project management tools.

Hosting

Taiga is available both as a cloud solution and as a self-hosted on-premises edition.

The cloud version is hosted in the European Union via AWS, which can be relevant for organizations that require GDPR-aligned hosting.

Pricing

Taiga offers free cloud and self-hosted options. Paid plans provide additional services such as premium support, with pricing depending on the selected edition.

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Compare the top 5 open source project management software in 2026

Choosing the best project management software for your organization depends on a variety of criteria, including the features and workflows you need, the size of your team, and your hosting and data privacy requirements.

All listed open source project management tools have their own strengths and are suited for different use cases — from lightweight issue tracking to full-featured hybrid project planning.

If you are looking for an open source project management software in 2026, we recommend taking a closer look at OpenProject, Redmine, GitLab, Tuleap, and Taiga.

To give you a quick summary:

Tool	Best for in 2026	Hosting options
OpenProject	Hybrid project management across teams	Cloud + self-hosted
Redmine	Lightweight issue tracking and plugins	Mainly self-hosted
GitLab	DevOps teams managing code + planning	Cloud + self-hosted
Tuleap	Agile planning + lifecycle management	Cloud + self-hosted
Taiga	Scrum and Kanban teams	Cloud + self-hosted

• OpenProject supports classic, agile, and hybrid project management in one platform. It offers features such as Gantt charts, agile boards, time and cost tracking, and a strong focus on data sovereignty through self-hosting or secure EU-based cloud hosting.

• Redmine is a long-established open source tool focused on issue tracking and extensibility through plugins. It is primarily self-hosted and often used by technical teams looking for a lightweight and customizable solution.

• GitLab combines project planning with source code management and DevOps workflows. It is especially relevant for software development teams that want to manage code and project work in one integrated environment.

• Tuleap focuses on agile project management and application lifecycle management (ALM). It is well suited for teams working in structured software development environments that require agile planning and lifecycle tracking.

• Taiga provides an intuitive and visually appealing agile project management experience, focused on Scrum and Kanban workflows. It is a strong option for teams looking for simplicity in agile execution.

Regarding pricing and hosting details, we recommend visiting the individual websites, as costs and available plans may vary depending on team size, deployment model, and support requirements.

You can also take a look at more detailed comparisons of OpenProject to other alternatives here. Every organization is different, make a choice that’s best for your needs. We are here if you have more questions.

OpenProject 17.1 has been released and introduces several major improvements across the platform. In this article, we highlight the most important changes and what they mean for your daily work. We will summarize the most important changes in this blog article and, as always, please see our release notes that contain all changes, features and bug fixes.

A quick article navigation:

• Automated project initiation requests (Enterprise add-on)
• Smarter meeting workflows with work package outcomes and more
• Release Attribute highlighting to Community
• Other great improvements with OpenProject 17.1
• Migration, installation, updates and support

Automated project initiation requests (Enterprise add-on)

Starting new projects often involves more than just creating a project space. In many organizations, project initiation includes collecting key information, aligning stakeholders, and requesting formal approval before work can begin.

With OpenProject 17.1, automated project initiation requests help structure this process in a dedicated workflow. Instead of coordinating project details via emails, spreadsheets, or meetings, teams can collect all required information directly within OpenProject and track the initiation status transparently.

Project initiation requests are based on predefined templates and guide requesters through the necessary input. This makes project intake more consistent and reduces back-and-forth between project requesters, project managers, and decision-makers.

Once submitted, OpenProject automatically creates a work package with all relevant information as well as a PDF artifact. This way, initiation requests can be reviewed, discussed, and approved in a structured way before the project moves forward.

This feature is particularly useful for organizations with standardized project processes, governance requirements, or approval workflows. It supports a clear separation between requesting, reviewing, and starting projects, while keeping all information in one place.

If you want to learn more about the concept behind project initiation workflows and how they support structured project governance, take a look at our preview article on project initiation request workflows for PM² and other standards .

To learn about how to use the automated project initiation requests, please see our documentation.

Important

Automated project initiation requests are available as an Enterprise add-on in the Premium plan. See our pricing page and contact us for more information on upgrading to a higher plan.

Smarter meeting workflows with work package outcomes and more

Meetings are most effective when decisions and action items are clearly captured and followed up on. With OpenProject 17.1, meeting workflows have been improved to help teams turn discussions into concrete next steps and keep recurring meetings better connected.

One of the great improvements is that meeting outcomes can now be directly created as work packages. Instead of manually transferring notes or action items after a meeting, teams can immediately turn agreed outcomes into tasks and assign responsibilities. This helps ensure that decisions made in meetings lead to actual progress.

For recurring meetings, agenda items and outcomes can now be copied to the next occurrence. This makes it easier to continue discussions, revisit open points, or carry forward unfinished items without recreating content from scratch.

OpenProject 17.1 also improves calendar integration for meetings. Participant responses such as accepted, declined, or tentative are now visible directly in the meeting sidebar. These responses are collected from calendar invitations, for example when an ICS event is sent by email or downloaded and shared, giving organizers a clearer overview of who plans to attend.

Together, these improvements make meetings more actionable, better connected to ongoing work, and easier to manage across recurring sessions and external calendars.

Attribute highlighting released to Community edition

At OpenProject, we remain committed to our Community and are convinced that the continuous development of the OpenProject Community Edition benefits everyone. That’s why we regularly release Enterprise add-ons for the Community version. With OpenProject 17.1, we are releasing attribute highlighting for our Community, so that it’s no longer an Enterprise add-on.

Depending on which attributes you want to highlight – and which colors you choose – your work package table looks different. Here’s an example of a work package table highlighted by Priority:

Read more about this seemingly small, but very effective feature in our blog.

Other great improvements with OpenProject 17.1

OpenProject 17.1 offers more features and updates. To keep this article concise, here is a quick look at some additional improvements worth highlighting:

Enable a warning before opening external links in user-provided content (Enterprise add-on)

To improve security awareness, OpenProject 17.1 introduces an optional warning before opening external links that were added by users. This helps teams better assess potential risks when leaving OpenProject, especially in environments with many collaborators or external contributors. Available as Enterprise add-on in the Premium plan. Read more about capturing external links in OpenProject.

Show short and weight values for Hierarchy and Weighted item list fields (Enterprise add-on)

Hierarchy and Weighted item list custom fields now display their short and weight values more clearly. This makes it easier to understand priorities and calculations at a glance, especially when working with structured data or aggregated values in larger projects.

Note

Hierarchy fields are available as Enterprise add-ons in the Basic plan and weighted item list fields are available as Enterprise add-on in the Premium plan. Read more about custom fields in OpenProject.

Improved performance and UX/UI updates

OpenProject 17.1 includes further performance improvements, bug fixes and UX/UI refinements across the application. The Activity tab has been optimized to load faster and provide a smoother experience, especially in projects with a large amount of activity.

In addition, several areas have been updated to use the Primer design system, including the Access tokens section in account settings, the Backlogs administration page, and the password confirmation dialog. These changes improve visual consistency and usability while keeping existing workflows intact.

OpenProject 17.1: Migration, installation, updates and support

Follow the upgrade guide for the packaged installation or Docker installation to update your OpenProject installation to OpenProject 17.1. We update your hosted OpenProject environments (Enterprise cloud) today, February 11, 2026.

You will find more information about all new features and changes in our Release notes and 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 will be happy to support you personally.

• New to OpenProject? To test all features of OpenProject 17.1 right away, create a 14 days free trial instance for our OpenProject Enterprise cloud.
• Prefer to run OpenProject 17.1 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 (all plans).

Credits

A very special thank you goes to Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin, 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 Johannes Baumgarten, Lea Fuchs, Александр Татаринцев, Stefan Weiberg, and Natalie Stettner.

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:

• Haura Nabila Rinaldi, for a great number of translations into Indonesian.
• arnegronkjaer, for a great number of translations into Danish.

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.

Those who work according to project management standards, such as PM² or PMflex, rely on very specific requirements when creating new projects. A new project initiation request is therefore often time-consuming and prone to errors: Which version of the spreadsheet actually contains the up-to-date data? And what information do I need to submit the request? In many organizations, this project initiation request serves as the formal basis for approval, budgeting, and prioritization.

As a project portfolio manager, you want to enable project initiators to easily create and process project initiation requests in one platform for project and portfolio management. That’s why we want to significantly simplify the project initiation process with OpenProject: we are currently developing a wizard that guides users step by step through the project initiation workflow.

In this blog article, you can find out exactly how this workflow will simplify the work of portfolio managers and everyone involved in creating new projects. Please keep in mind that this is a preview of a feature still in development and therefore subject to change.

Important

This feature is currently planned to be released with version 17.1 in February 2026, as Enterprise add-on in the Premium plan. Please see our Pricing page to learn more about the different OpenProject plans.

Automated guidance for complex processes

Every month, we release new features and Enterprise add-ons for OpenProject. On the one hand, this means the software is becoming more powerful. Project managers can work faster, more effectively, and in a more targeted way. On the other hand, we are aware that users need clear guidance from the software — especially when underlying processes are complex, whether based on PM², PMflex, or other project management standards.

Particularly when starting projects, a step-by-step workflow can be extremely helpful. The idea: project portfolio managers define specific steps and attributes in a template. Anyone who then creates a new project simply follows the predefined steps. At the end, a work package is created that contains all the necessary information and is assigned directly to the responsible person or group reviewing the request.

This ensures that standards are met, everything is documented centrally, and users can focus on their actual work instead of on the tool.

Benefit of a workflow for project initiation requests

Does the following sound familiar? To create a project initiation request according to PM² or PMflex, you have to search through scattered Excel spreadsheets — or, even worse, emails — and in the end, you’re still not sure whether you have the latest and correct data. And even if all the data is there, it still needs to be checked by a portfolio or program manager. But how and when?

These unclear processes cost time and causes frustration, resulting in incomplete project initiation requests.

So let’s:

• Predefine clear processes and required attributes in a template.
• Enable a feature that guides the user step by step.
• Complete the workflow with automation that bundles all information and initiates the next step.

Our vision is to make this possible for users of PM² and PMflex in particular and to enable it as Enterprise add-on. At the same time, we also want teams using other methods – such as PRINCE2, SAFe, OKR – to benefit from predefined standards and guided project creation.

Tip

PMflex is the project management standard for public administration in Germany. As OpenProject is part of openDesk, the all in one office and collaboration suite tailored for public sector Germany, the project initiation wizard will also be available for openDesk users.

A structured process helps organizations:

• Reduce cognitive load for project initiators.
• Ensure all mandatory information is collected.
• Avoid errors caused by outdated or inconsistent data.
• Standardize project initiation across departments.
• Onboard new employees more easily.
• Improve transparency for reviewers and decision-makers involved in the approval process.
• Automate the handover to portfolio or program managers.
• Keep documentation in one central place.

Let’s see what the OpenProject team is currently working on to enable this idea of a project initiation wizard.

Feature preview: project initiation workflow (Enterprise add-on)

The planned Enterprise add-on will enable project initiators to navigate through the process in four steps.

1. Select a template to create a project

Choose the right project, program, or portfolio template defined by your portfolio manager to ensure that all required attributes and steps are included.

Image: Preview mockup showing interface to select different templates to begin the project initiation request in OpenProject.

2. Fill out the predefined requirements

Enter the necessary information in a clear and guided form. The fields shown depend on the chosen template and ensure that all mandatory data is collected.

Image: Preview mockup showing interface to fill out several requirements for the project initiation request, such as Dates, Technical information or legal basis.

3. Submit the project initiation request to trigger automations

Once all required fields are filled out, submit the initiation request. The workflow automatically bundles all information and sends it to the responsible reviewer.

Image: Preview mockup showing interface to submit a project initiation request in OpenProject.

4. Check the status and exported artifact on the work package

After submission, OpenProject automatically creates a work package in addition to the project you just created. With this work package, you can track the status of the initiation request. Additionally, OpenProject will generate an artifact from your information in the form of a PDF and add it to the newly created work package.

For this step, we don’t have a mockup to show yet, but the created work package could look something like this:

Image: Demo work package of a project initiation request in OpenProject, with automatically written description, uploaded PDF file (the artifact) and comment by ‘System’.

Example from practice: How this wizard will improve daily work

Imagine Anna, a project coordinator in the IT department of a medium-sized German city administration. Until now, her workday often started the same way: searching for the correct version of a project initiation file. One version was saved on a shared drive, another was attached to an email, and a third one was updated by a colleague “just last week” — but nobody remembered where.

When she finally found the right file, the next challenge was figuring out which fields were mandatory. Some projects required additional information, others didn’t. And if something was missing, the portfolio manager would send the request back days later with comments like “Please update section 3.2” or “Missing justification for budget planning.”

With the new project initiation workflow in OpenProject, this process is expected to become much easier. Anna selects the correct template, follows the predefined steps, and fills out only the fields relevant to the project type. No guessing, no version confusion, no back-and-forth.

When she submits the request, all information is automatically bundled and assigned to the responsible reviewer — making the process transparent, structured, and significantly faster. And because the workflow aligns with the PMflex project initiation phase, her organization can ensure that every new project starts with complete and standardized documentation.

Outlook

The project initiation workflow is the first step toward a series of guided processes in OpenProject. After completing this feature, we plan to support additional PMflex-aligned wizards to make structured project, program, and portfolio management even easier — especially for public administration and large organizations with standardized processes.

We look forward to sharing more insights as development progresses.

Talks, digital sovereignty, and Community at FOSDEM ’26 in Brussels

On 31 January and 1 February 2026, FOSDEM returns to Brussels. For more than 25 years, FOSDEM has been one of the world’s largest and most respected conferences for free and open source software, bringing together developers, maintainers, public sector practitioners, and open source communities from around the globe.

We are excited to be part of FOSDEM 2026 with two talks and to once again connect with the wider open source ecosystem.

OpenProject: A Year Full of Updates

Wieland Lindenthal

In this fast-paced session, Wieland Lindenthal will walk through the most impactful OpenProject updates of the past year. From powerful portfolio management improvements to long-requested service management features such as internal work package notes, the talk offers a comprehensive overview of where OpenProject is today.

Beyond new features, the session also looks ahead. Wieland will share our long-term technical strategy to bring real-time text collaboration to every corner of the platform. The goal is to enable teams to co-create work packages, meeting notes, and other project management artifacts seamlessly.

A key part of this journey is our work with BlockNote, the rich-text editor already powering applications such as openDesk’s Notes and Mijn Bureau’s Docs. You will learn how we are integrating BlockNote to bridge the gap between quick text sketches and fully-fledged project plans, and how developers can leverage our BlockNote extensions to integrate work and task management into their own platforms.

The talk will also give an outlook on our migration strategy for teams moving from Atlassian Jira Data Center to OpenProject and from Confluence to XWiki, supporting organizations on their path toward open and sovereign collaboration.

Whether you are a user, contributor, or developer, this session invites you to rethink collaboration in open source project management.

👉 Find out more and bookmark the session

From Vendor Lock-in to Resilient Digital Ecosystems: Leading Change in Europe’s Public Digital Infrastructure

Rosanna Sibora

As European public sector organizations pursue digital sovereignty, the technical migration from proprietary software to open source solutions is often only half the challenge. Technology is rarely the hardest part. The real complexity lies in changing mindsets, workflows, and institutional culture.

In this talk, Rosanna Sibora shares proven change management strategies drawn from leading IT transformations and guiding public sector clients through transitions from Jira to OpenProject. The focus is on how to build sustainable and resilient digital ecosystems that serve citizens rather than vendors.

Participants will learn how to:

• Co-create change through proven leadership best practices
• Create ownership for the open source solutions within public sector
• Build the business case and frame the open source narrative that resonates with public sector stakeholders and decision-makers
• Drive the mindset shift to FOSS
• Identify your use cases and foster transition to open source products
• Build internal champions who drive adoption across departments

Drawing on real-world public sector experience, this session highlights the human factors that can make or break digital sovereignty initiatives. Whether you are planning your first migration or refining your change management approach, you will leave with actionable frameworks for leading successful transitions to independent and interoperable digital workspaces.

👉 Find out more and bookmark the session

Community matters: Join our FOSDEM meetup

FOSDEM weekends are intense. Talks all day, devrooms to jump between, and hallway conversations that somehow turn into deep discussions about documentation, governance, or that one bug that still exists.

Once the laptops close, we do what open source communities do best. We meet. We talk. We grab a drink.

We are happy to co-sponsor a FOSDEM community meetup:

On Friday, 31 January 2026, we invite you to an informal open source meetup in Brussels together with our friends from XWiki, Nextcloud, and Passbolt.

No talks. No slides. Just people.

When and where:

• Date: Saturday, 31 January 2026
• Time: From 20:00 until late
• Location: Scott’s Bar & Kitchen, Rue Montagne aux Herbes Potagères 2, 1000 Brussels

👉 Save your spot

We are hiring

FOSDEM is about connections. We are also having quite a few remote open source jobs in our luggage. If you want to contribute to a thriving open source project and foster Europe’s digital sovereignty, let’s talk.

We are currently looking for:

• Senior Account Manager France
• Senior Full Stack Developers
• Product Tech Lead
• Customer Success Manager
• …

Open source, remote first, European values.

👉 Get in touch. Let’s talk

We are looking forward to inspiring talks, great conversations, and meeting many familiar and new faces at FOSDEM 2026. See you soon in Brussels.

We have released version 2.11.0 of the OpenProject integration app for Nextcloud! ✨ This update brings several usability improvements and fixes to make your project collaboration experience even smoother.

We recommend updating to the latest version via your Nextcloud app center to benefit from the newest enhancements.

Changes of the release 2.11.0:

• Simplified warning message for OIDC identification
• Improved work package creation process
• Clearer messaging in the select field during work package creation
• Smoother UI in the “Create work package” modal (stable Subject field behavior)

Thanks to Nextcloud for the continued partnership!

Teams collaborate on ideas, strategies, and texts every day, but when this happens outside the project tool, context gets lost and coordination takes more time than necessary. With OpenProject 17.0, real-time collaboration is now built directly into the Documents module (Cloud and Containerized installations) — but only if the module is activated in your project.

In this article, you will learn why enabling the Documents module is worth it, how live collaboration works in OpenProject, and how to get started in just a few minutes.

Get started with live collaboration

Enabling the Documents module is a small step that can have an immediate impact on how your project team collaborates. Instead of using separate tools or exchanging document versions, teams can create and edit documents together directly in OpenProject.

Typical use cases include:

• Brainstorming ideas together in real time.
• Aligning on strategies, concepts, or project goals.
• Drafting guidelines, proposals, or internal documentation.
• Collecting input and feedback from multiple stakeholders.

Important

Real-time documents collaboration is available starting with version 17.0 and is automatically enabled for Containerized and Cloud-hosted installations. Packaged installations (DEB/RPM) require additional manual setup. Please see our system administration guide for more details.

Watch this video to understand how to benefit from OpenProject Documents with live collaboration:

How to use the OpenProject Documents module for real-time editing

Imagine a marketing team that wants to align on its strategy for the year. Several people need to contribute ideas, refine wording, and agree on priorities — ideally without exchanging files or switching between tools. The Meetings module helps collect ideas and align on topics in a structured way, but sometimes teams simply need a shared document to brainstorm collaboratively, without organizing everything as a meeting.

With the Documents module enabled, the team can create a shared document in their project and start working on it together in real time. Everyone sees changes instantly, comments can be addressed on the spot, and the document evolves collaboratively instead of through multiple versions.

Below is a simple example of how project admins can get started and introduce live collaboration in just a few steps.

1. Activate the Documents module in your project

As a project admin, open the project settings and activate the Documents module. This is the only required step to make live collaboration available to your project members. Once activated, all users with the appropriate permissions can create and edit documents together in real time.

2. Create types to structure your documents

To keep documents organized, you can define document types such as Strategy, Concepts, or Internal documentation. This is especially helpful when multiple teams or topics are involved. Types make it easier for project members to find and reuse documents later on and can be adjusted as your project grows.

3. Create your first document

Create a new document and give it a clear title, for example Marketing strategy 2026. The document opens directly in the editor, and changes are saved automatically while you work. From this point on, multiple users can edit the document at the same time without any additional setup.

4. Share the document with your team

Simply share the document link with your project members. Everyone with access to the project can open the document and start contributing immediately. No separate invitations or external sharing settings are required — project permissions apply automatically.

5. Explore the editor and link work packages in the text

Use the editor to structure your content, add lists or headings, and reference relevant work packages directly in the document text. This helps connect ideas and decisions with the tasks they relate to. For more advanced editing options, you can learn more about the underlying editor technology in the BlockNote documentation.

Tip

Use the news module to spread the word and encourage project members to try out live collaboration in Documents as well.

Activate live collaboration in your team

You are already taking the time to read about live collaboration — enabling the Documents module in your project takes less than a minute. Activate the Documents module, create a first document, and invite your team to work on it together.

If you are looking for more details on specific settings or permissions, our documentation is the best place to start. The User Guide explains how to work with documents, while the System admin guide covers technical setup and configuration options.

OpenProject 17.0 has been released and introduces several major improvements across the platform. In this article, we highlight the most important changes and what they mean for your daily work.

As this is a major release with many updates, we focus on the key highlights here. For a complete overview of all features, changes, and bug fixes, please see our release notes.

A quick article navigation:

• Real-time documents collaboration

• Better meetings, less overhead: Draft and presentation modes, outcomes, and iCal

• Redesigned project home and improved template selection

• Programs and portfolios for strategic structuring (Enterprise add-on)

• Updated SharePoint integration with more restrictive permissions (Enterprise add-on)

• Other great improvements

Think together, create together: Real-time documents collaboration

Project ideas, decisions, and agreements are often formed together. At the same time, they tend to be spread across different tools and files. This makes it harder to keep context, align as a team, and connect written content to actual project work.

With OpenProject 17.0, teams can collaborate on documents in real time, directly in OpenProject. What does that mean? – Multiple users can edit a document at the same time and see each other’s changes instantly. This helps teams develop ideas together, align on content, and keep everything centrally available.

That central approach works especially well because most documents are closely connected to your tasks and projects. You can reference milestones and link work packages, making it easier to move from a shared text draft to an actionable project plan. This is especially useful for project-related documents such as concepts, contracts, specifications, or planning documents, where collaboration and traceability matter.

Good to know: The redesigned Documents module is built on BlockNote, a modern, open source text editor that is also used in other European open source projects such as LaSuite and openDesk. This creates a strong foundation for future collaboration features across OpenProject.

Important

Real-time collaboration in Documents is available out of the box for all plans using OpenProject Cloud or on-premises installations with Docker Compose, Kubernetes, or Helm. For package-based installations, real-time communication needs to be set up separately. Also relevant for on-premises installations using packages: The package source has been changed to packages.openproject.com.

If you want to learn more about the design decisions, technical background, and what’s planned next, read this blog article.

Better meetings, less overhead: Draft and presentation modes, outcomes, and iCal

Meetings are essential for coordination and decision-making — but preparing agendas, guiding discussions, and documenting results often require extra manual effort. This can make meetings feel fragmented and outcomes hard to follow up on.

OpenProject 17.0 improves meeting workflows by supporting teams before, during, and after a meeting, helping to keep everything structured in one place. Read more about meeting management with OpenProject in our user guide.

Planning a meeting: Draft mode

With draft mode, agendas can be created and refined collaboratively without notifying participants too early. This allows moderators to align internally before opening the meeting and sharing it with the full group.

Running a meeting: Presentation mode

Once the meeting starts, keeping discussions focused can be challenging. Presentation mode helps moderators guide participants through the agenda step by step, making it easier to stay on topic and ensure that all items are addressed in order.

Documenting results: Multiple outcomes

Capturing results is just as important as running the meeting itself. Meetings can now include multiple text-based outcomes, making it easier to document decisions, agreements, or next steps directly where they belong. These outcomes remain part of the meeting documentation and can be reviewed later.

Staying informed: iCal subscription

To support follow-up and planning, meetings can also be subscribed to via iCal, allowing participants to stay informed about schedules and updates in their personal calendar tools.

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Together, these improvements help teams run meetings more efficiently, keep discussions structured, and ensure that results are clearly documented and accessible.

Structure projects consistently: Redesigned project home and improved template selection

Creating projects in a consistent way is essential, especially for organizations working with defined project standards such as PM² or PMflex. In practice, project information is often spread across different views, and project setup can be error-prone, particularly for non-technical administrators.

OpenProject 17.0 introduces a redesigned project home, now split into two dedicated tabs. This makes it easier to distinguish between high-level project information and operational details and helps teams understand a project’s structure at a glance. Please note that in addition to the redesign, the project overview page has been renamed to project home.

Project creation has also been improved. A clearer template selection guides users through the setup process and helps avoid common mistakes, even when projects are created by users without deep technical knowledge.

Note

These improvements lay the foundation for a planned multi-step project creation wizard in one of the next releases. The upcoming wizard aims to support the creation and processing of PM² / PMflex artifacts in a guided and user-friendly way. We plan to publish a preview article about this feature on our blog soon.

Manage projects at a strategic level: Programs and portfolios (Enterprise add-on)

As organizations grow, managing projects individually is often no longer enough. Strategic goals, dependencies, and priorities need to be visible across multiple projects — not just within them.

With programs and portfolios, OpenProject 17.0 helps organizations structure projects at a higher level. Related projects can be grouped into programs and portfolios to provide an overview of all ongoing initiatives. This makes it easier to align work with strategic goals, track progress across projects, and support informed decision-making.

This is particularly helpful for organizations working with PM² or PMflex, where projects are embedded in a broader strategic context and need to be managed consistently across portfolios and programs. PMOs, management teams, and public sector organizations benefit from increased transparency without adding complexity to day-to-day project work.

The feature is available as an Enterprise add-on in the Premium plan and integrates seamlessly with existing project structures in OpenProject. See our user guide to learn more about the portfolio module in OpenProject.

More control when connecting SharePoint: Updated SharePoint integration (Enterprise add-on)

Sharing and collaborating on documents across systems is common in many organizations — but it also raises questions around access control and data protection. Especially in regulated environments, it is important to clearly define who can see and edit which content.

With OpenProject 17.0, the existing SharePoint/OneDrive integration has been split into two separate integrations. This allows for more restrictive and clearer permission handling when connecting SharePoint content to OpenProject.

The updated SharePoint and OneDrive integrations are available as Enterprise add-ons in the Professional plan, just like before version 17.0. See our system admin guide to learn more about the SharePoint integration and now separate OneDrive integration for OpenProject.

Other great improvements

OpenProject 17.0 is a packed release. To keep this article concise, here is a quick look at some additional improvements worth highlighting:

Improved accessibility

Alt texts for images and improved chart colors make OpenProject more accessible and easier to use for everyone. See our Release Notes for more information on accessibility improvements.

Smarter global search and more precise autocompleters

The global search now includes additional context such as type and status, helping users find relevant content faster. As a positive side effect of that, several autocompleters have been improved to provide more accurate suggestions and reduce ambiguity when entering data. See our Release Notes for more information on smarter global search and more precise autocompleters.

More restrictive user privacy options

User visibility can now be restricted more strictly for people who are not members of the same project, supporting privacy-sensitive environments. See our Release Notes for more information on more restrictive privacy options.

Improved project attribute help texts

Project attributes now offer clearer help texts with captions and support more direct editing, making project setup easier to understand. See our Release Notes for more information on improved project attribute help texts.

Custom mobile logo (Enterprise add-on)

Organizations using the Enterprise Basic plan and higher can now use a custom logo in the OpenProject mobile app to better reflect their brand. See our Release Notes for more information on adding a custom mobile logo.

Required project attributes

Projects can now enforce required attributes, helping ensure consistent and complete project data. See our Release Notes for more information on required project attributes.

New permission to export projects

A dedicated permission now allows administrators to control who is allowed to export project data.

OpenProject 17.0: Migration, installation, updates and support

Follow the upgrade guide for the packaged installation or Docker installation to update your OpenProject installation to OpenProject 17.0. We update your hosted OpenProject environments (Enterprise cloud) today, January 14, 2026.

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 will be happy to support you personally.

• New to OpenProject? To test all features of OpenProject 17.0 right away, create a 14 days free trial instance for our OpenProject Enterprise cloud.
• Prefer to run OpenProject 17.0 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 (all plans).

Credits

A very special thank you goes to Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin, 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 Alexander Aleschenko, Stefan Weiberg, and Markus Preisinger.

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:

• stenberg.thomas, for a great number of translations into Swedish.
• natalianikolaieva1803, for a great number of translations into Ukrainian.
• Sharmin, for a great number of translations into Persian.

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.