Jira is a well-known agile project management tool. For many, Jira is a household name for issue tracking software. However, Jira is not open source. OpenProject is - and offers quite similar features. On top of that, OpenProject provides both a cloud or on-premises edition. Jira has chosen to focus on the cloud side of things and has terminated the self-hosted option. Let’s compare Jira and OpenProject.

Hosting

Jira shifted its focus to the cloud edition and has discontinued the on-premises offer. This move marks a shift in focus towards the cloud edition. Jira users who self-host their software had been requested to make plans to move to the cloud or data center, as support for self-hosted Jira is no longer available since spring 2024. Since then, many Jira customers already migrated to an alternative or are still looking for an easy way to do so.

OpenProject continues offering both the cloud and on-premises editions. OpenProject Enterprise on-premises edition enables companies to install OpenProject on their own servers and offers additional Enterprise add-ons and security features, as well as support. It provides the flexibility of self-hosting while ensuring a high level of security and extensibility with additional features.

Tip

In February 2025, an open source developer wrote a migration script for Jira to OpenProject – the OpenProject Jira importer. Read more about it on our blog article A Community-driven solution for your Jira exit: The OpenProject Jira importer, or navigate directly to the migration tool on GitHub.

Open source

OpenProject is an open source software and as such provides independence and complete autonomy. Its source code is publicly available on GitHub. It allows users to modify code and create new plug-ins for maximum flexibility. Being open source means that users can customize and tailor it to their needs, making it an attractive option for businesses looking for a flexible and adaptable project management solution. With OpenProject, users can take full control of their project management process and make it fit their unique workflows.

Jira is a proprietary software, which means that the software code cannot be reviewed, so the users are dependent on the vendor for reliability, code adjustments and upgrades. This also means that certain features require third-party plugins and can significantly increase maintenance costs.

Data security

Data security is an important aspect when choosing a project management tool. Both OpenProject and Jira treat the subject with the seriousness it requires.

Large companies often have strong data privacy and data security guidelines which might prohibit the use of web-based solutions, making use of Jira cloud solutions potentially problematic. Furthermore, the location of data storage must be considered. Jira uses AWS storage services. While storing customer data in the European AWS region is possible, it must be actively requested.

For OpenProject data security is a top priority, our processes meet all requirements of the EU General Data Protection Regulation. Whether you decide to use the cloud or a self-hosted edition, you can be sure that your data is safe. All our customer data for the cloud edition is hosted and kept in the EU. For the self-hosted edition, you have absolute control over your data.

Features

OpenProject and Jira both offer comprehensive and customizable project management tools that offer a range of features to support agile, classic, and hybrid project management. They both provide similar capabilities for issue tracking, backlog maintenance, reporting, user management and more. It should be noted that with Jira, some of the functionalities or more advanced versions of such functionalities come through integrating one or more plugins. This can mean additional maintenance efforts, not to mention additional costs.

Let’s take a look at how some of the features compare.

Issue & task tracking

Both Jira and OpenProject offer sophisticated issue tracking with custom fields and workflow customization.

Jira

In Jira users can create new issues either directly in the list view of the existing issues or in a popup window. The displayed fields can be configured, and the view can be customized to users’ needs. It is possible to specify workflows for different issue types.

Image: Issue tracking in Jira Image: A list view of issues in Jira.

OpenProject

In OpenProject you can create new issues from the work package table. Similar to Jira, the displayed attributes can be configured for each issue type. On top of this, you can display help texts to assist users in setting the correct attribute values. You can adjust the workflow for each issue type, as well as for the author and assignee of a work package.

Image: Create a work package in OpenProject. Image: A list view of work packages in OpenProject.

Project planning with Gantt charts

Managing a project plan is a critical component for successful project management.

Jira

The core version of Jira previously did not include a Gantt chart. This has now been compensated be the timeline function that displays the project time plan. Sophisticated Gantt chart options are available via installing additional plugins.

Image: A time plan in Jira.

OpenProject

OpenProject enables creating and managing project plans using Gantt charts, both for single projects, as well as multi-hierarchy projects. The dynamic and interactive Gantt chart in OpenProject can be displayed on the work package table. This allows a seamless transition from the list view to the Gantt chart view. Start and due dates can be easily updated by either setting the dates in the list view or using drag & drop in the Gantt chart. Thereby, you can choose between top-down and bottom-up planning. You can also create and visualize dependencies in the Gantt chart. Project managers can create and visualize the progress, even for complex Gantt charts which span multiple projects. It is also possible to add a baseline comparison to also display planning changes.

Image: A Gantt chart time plan in OpenProject.

Time and cost tracking

An essential feature for any larger project is the ability to track the time, as well as the costs spent on a project.

Jira

Jira supports time tracking, including the detailed specification of working times and hours. In the basic version, the time spent on an issue can be logged in the detailed view of a task but is not displayed in the list of all the tasks. More advanced time tracking options are available through various add-ins. Jira does not support cost tracking in the basic version. However, it is possible to download add-ins in the Atlassian marketplace for cost tracking.

OpenProject

You can enable time and cost tracking for each project separately within OpenProject. Additionally, OpenProject allows users to track costs - both personnel costs as well as unit costs. Furthermore, you can create budgets within projects to compare planned and realized costs. You can create and save detailed time and costs reports filtered and grouped based on your needs. A sophisticated permission model allows users to restrict the data that users can see. This includes for example whether a user can only see and edit own tracked time.

Image: A time tracking overview in OpenProject.

Conclusion: OpenProject vs Jira

In conclusion: Jira is a very powerful application with more than 2,000 add-ons and a large following. It is highly customizable. However, this flexibility comes at a price: Many add-ons come with a significant price tag which adds up. Also, going forward, Jira is putting its cloud version first, deprioritizing server products.

OpenProject is open source, it offers very similar features all from the same source without additional expense. The decision between the cloud or on-premises editions is entirely up to you. OpenProject is the best open source Jira alternative.

Do you need a demo or want to switch?

If you want to take a glance at OpenProject or test all features thoroughly you can create a free OpenProject trial.

Take a look at other customers who have decided to switch to OpenProject from Jira and read about their experience.

If you consider moving from Jira to OpenProject, there is a way to import tickets from Jira to OpenProject. First, you can export your tasks from Jira into an Excel file and then import these tasks via an Excel plugin into OpenProject. Additionally, there is the user-built OpenProject Jira importer, as mentioned in the beginning of the article. If you would like to discuss your specific case, you can always get in touch with us.

Agile methods make administrations more effective - but without the right software, good ideas often remain good ideas. Modern task management makes it possible to control processes efficiently and react flexibly to changes. OpenProject offers exactly this possibility: a customizable open source solution that ensures full control over data with a high level of functionality. Cost-effectively.

In this article, you can learn…

• how task management can help with the introduction of agile processes,
• which features a software for agile project management requires in administration,
• how OpenProject meets these requirements,
• which public administrations in Germany are successfully working with OpenProject – and which features they particularly appreciate.

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Making digital administration work: Cutting complexity, boosting efficiency

Endless Excel lists, lost emails, and overflowing inboxes—does that sound familiar? Many administrative teams struggle with outdated tools and rigid workflows that slow down rather than support their daily work. Digitalization is supposed to help, but too often it brings complicated, expensive, and impractical solutions.

We understand—many people don’t want to hear about digitization anymore. Too many initiatives have promised improvement but ended up adding more complexity instead. The real question is: How can digital tools actually simplify work in administration — without creating new obstacles?

OpenProject offers a pragmatic approach here. The open source project and task management software helps to clearly structure tasks and make processes more efficient. Without burdening employees with unnecessary complexity. Freedom of design for administrators, simple and perfectly tailored application for employees.

Introducing agile processes with efficient task management

Digital task management is a key building block on the path to greater agility in administration. Every day, numerous tasks, approvals and processes are created in public administrations that need to be coordinated. Without a clear structure, this leads to lags, extra work and a lack of transparency. Professional task management ensures that:

• responsibilities are clearly defined,
• all tasks can be tracked at all times,
• work processes run efficiently and transparently.

Agile working does not mean chaos, but flexibility with a basic structure at the same time. Administrative staff can react more quickly to changes and adapt their work to current requirements. Instead of constantly adapting rigid processes, agile structures can create more efficient workflows that grow dynamically. This enables a sustainable, future-proof way of working in administration.

What features does task management software need in administration?

For task management in administration to function simply and efficiently, the software must have the following features:

• Easy to use: Only administrators have to deal with technical details - for everyone else, operation is uncomplicated and intuitive.
• Flexible methods: Personalized composition of agile and classic methods - in a modular system, suitable for the working methods of the respective administration.
• Tasks in work packages: All information collected in one place, with clear responsibilities and traceable progress.
• Data protection and compliance: Security and GDPR compliance must of course be guaranteed.
• No vendor lock-in: Public administrations must retain full control over their data at all times.

Five stars for OpenProject - perfect for task management in administration

The demands on modern administrations are increasing at every turn: More tasks, more regulations - and more digitalization. OpenProject is a solution that was developed precisely for these challenges. No more Excel spreadsheets like “xxx_new-2”, just centralized task management supported by agile processes.

Let’s put OpenProject to the test and take a closer look at the five requirements mentioned above:

Feature	Description
⭐ Easy to use for all employees	- Administrators can set up the instance with the help of extensive configuration options, so that it is easy to use for users.
⭐ Structured workflows with clear responsibilities	- Tasks are assigned transparently, so everyone knows who is responsible for what. - Status updates and automatic notifications ensure that the entire workflow remains traceable.
⭐ Flexibility with agile and traditional methods	- Whether Kanban, Scrum, or Gantt charts – OpenProject supports various ways of working. - Government teams can use hybrid methods and gradually introduce agile processes.
⭐ Data protection and digital sovereignty	- OpenProject is open source, giving public administrations full control over their data. - GDPR compliance and secure hosting options ensure maximum security.
⭐ Future-proof and sustainable solution	- No dependency on proprietary vendors, as OpenProject is open, extensible, and customizable. - Regular updates and an active community drive continuous development.

Tip

openDesk - your secure office and collaboration suite: Do you already know openDesk? The office and collaboration suite bundles proven open source tools explicitly for digital administrative work - including OpenProject for efficient task management and agile processes. Learn more about openDesk.

Features for agile administration with OpenProject - an overview

Successful digital administrative work requires more than just task management. OpenProject offers a wide range of features that are specially tailored to the needs of public administrations, such as:

• Agile Boards - Manage tasks and processes visually, prioritize them flexibly and maintain an overview.
• Meetings - Plan meetings in a structured way, link them to work packages and thus easily integrate agile methods such as dailies.
• Date alerts and notifications - Never miss important dates again and be informed in good time.
• Individual actions and workflows - Define automated processes for recurring tasks and make workflows more efficient.
• Time and cost tracking - Track working hours and budgets accurately to manage projects and resources optimally.

Here’s an example status board created in OpenProject:

Tip

Did you know? OpenProject is your best choice, if you do not exclusively use either agile or classic project management features. It offers a high range of customization and flexible administration. Read about your best mix with hybrid project management here.

European public administrations successfully work with OpenProject

OpenProject has been a popular choice for project and task management in the public sector long before the launch of openDesk. We’ve already outlined several reasons for this. Now, take a look at concrete real-world examples. We’ve spoken with customers and created case studies to provide transparency on the typical challenges faced by public administrations and how exactly OpenProject – and its key features – offers a solution.

How do public institutions in Germany use OpenProject?

You can find the following and more case studies on this page about project management for the public sector.

FITKO (Federal IT Cooperation)

“With OpenProject as part of openDesk, we have a centralized, flexible platform that greatly facilitates our work as the office of the Federal IT Standardization Board – from meeting planning, execution, and documentation to the centralized management of federal IT standards. The software supports us in collaboration and the coordination of our initiatives.”
Tobias Schuh, IT Standards Coordinator at FITKO (Federal IT Cooperation)

FITKO faces the significant challenge of coordinating and streamlining numerous tasks and stakeholders. With the introduction of openDesk, FITKO members now have access to a centralized and secure office and collaboration suite that enables just that. Read more in FITKO’s case study with OpenProject.

City of Ravensburg

“OpenProject enables us to plan long-term and reliably without overburdening our staff. As a municipality, OpenProject has finally given us the opportunity to properly manage our resource planning. The platform provides high reliability and transparency regarding workload distribution.”
Eric Fischer, former Process and Project Manager in Digitalization at the City of Ravensburg

The City of Ravensburg is just one of many municipalities relying on OpenProject. Since 2023, Ravensburg has been using OpenProject primarily for traditional project management, utilizing features like Gantt charts and the time and cost module. One major challenge before introducing OpenProject was making employees’ workloads visible at all. Now, it is possible to track workloads precisely and, most importantly, in time to redistribute tasks when necessary. Read more in the case study on City of Ravensburg and OpenProject.

Conclusion: Start agile now - at your own pace

The best way to get to know OpenProject? Just give it a try! You can test OpenProject free of charge for 14 days - no strings attached. Discover for yourself how intuitive and powerful digital task management can be for your administration.

Would you like an individual introduction or in-depth training? No problem! We offer customized training and consulting to provide you and your team with the best possible support.

Tip

Update on March 19, 2025: This feature is now released in version 14.5.

An upcoming version of OpenProject will introduce automatic scheduling for work packages. This highly-requested feature will make the process of setting up complex predecessor/successor relations a lot more practical for users who rely on OpenProject for complex project setups.

This blog post describes the upcoming changes and how they might affect you.

Note

The upcoming changes will not overwrite existing dates for any existing work packages but can change the scheduling mode. Please read on more more details. Don’t have much time? Skip directly to the summary.

Why we need this change

Especially in large projects with many assignees and stakeholders, scheduling can be a complex task. In the current version of OpenProject (15.3), there are two ways to schedule: a manual mode in which you can freely enter fixed dates which are never affected by relations, and a default mode where the dates are sometimes automatically adjusted, derived or constrained by relations. Whilst the current approach is functional, it is not always consistent.

For example, in default (non-manual) mode, a predecessor is able to push a successor to the future but unable to pull a successor earlier in time. This means that if, for example, a predecessor ends later than initially planned, it will push the follower back by as many days. However, if the predecessor ends earlier than initially planned, the follower stays where it was. Users rightly reported that this behaviour was inconsistent.

This behaviour does not affect work packages that are manually scheduled: users are already able to make the successor’s dates unaffected by those of the predecessor by choosing manual scheduling for the successor.

The upcoming changes will address this inconsistency and make scheduling more dependable.

Two scheduling modes: Manual and automatic

An upcoming version of OpenProject will introduce two distinct scheduling modes for work packages: manual and automatic.

• Manual Mode: In this mode, users have the freedom to select dates at their discretion. This flexibility allows project managers to set timelines based on specific needs, deadlines, or external factors that may influence project delivery. Manually scheduled work packages behave as they do today: they can still have predecessor, successor, parent or child relations but these relations will not affect the manually input dates.

• Automatic Mode: In automatic mode, it is not possible to manually enter a start date. This means that when a task is scheduled, the date picker will automatically calculate the appropriate start date based on the nearest predecessor. You can still enter a duration (and effectively change the finish date). This makes it possible to create a dependable chain of automatically scheduled work packages that automatically adjust to planning changes.

Note

Automatic scheduling mode will only be available to work package that have predecessors or have children.

Enhanced context in automatic mode

The work package date picker in OpenProject already gave you helpful context. With the upcoming release, they will provide even more precise context in both automatic and manual modes:

The context includes information about the task’s scheduling, such as:

• Which related work package is determining the start date in automatic mode (predecessors or children)
• If there is a significant gap between the predecessor and successor when the successor is in manual mode
• If there is an overlap of dates with the predecessor and successor in manual mode

This improvement is designed to enhance user understanding and confidence in the scheduling process by making things more transparent.

Improved navigation with tabs

Another enhancement is the introduction of tabs within the date picker.

There will be three new tabs that display existing relations in addition to the default Date tab:

• Predecessors: Tasks that must be completed before the current one can begin. In automatic mode, the closest predecessor from which the current work package derives its dates is marked with a “closest” label.
• Successors: Tasks that will commence after the current one is finished. In automatic mode, the start dates of these are affected by the current work package’s finish date.
• Children: Sub-tasks that fall under the current work package. If a work package has children, it will by default be in automatic scheduling mode. The start and finish dates of the parent will cover the dates of all containing children.

This structure allows users to quickly navigate through related tasks, making it simpler to understand project dependencies and manage timelines effectively.

Default setting for new work packages

By default, new work packages will be set to manual scheduling. This change allows users to begin by setting their own dates, which can be particularly beneficial in the initial planning stages of a project. It ensures that project managers have the flexibility to establish timelines that best suit their workflow from the outset. Switching to automatic mode remains a one-click operation in the date picker.

Single date mode

Along with automatic scheduling, an upcoming version of OpenProject will bring another feature to the date picker: single date mode.

Currently, all work packages except milestones have two date fields: start date and finish date. In other words, the date field is always a range. Of course, you do not always have set both dates, and you can also set the two dates to be the same. But in many cases, you don’t need two fields; a simple finish date is enough to signal a deadline or a delivery date.

To enable this, the date field for work packages in an upcoming version will by default only ask for the finish date. This simplifies things for users who don’t need both, but this is just the default; the user can in a single click go from single date mode to range mode (like today) by clicking on the + Start date button or adding a duration. The date picker will then behave as is does today. Of course, if the user wants single date mode with just a Start date instead of a Finish date, this is possible too.

Work packages in single date mode work exactly like work packages do today when only one date is entered and the other left empty. This will therefore not involve a change in behaviour and scheduling, simply a change in the default behaviour and UI of the date picker.

In summary

Here is a summary of changes coming in an upcoming version:

• The date picker now offers two scheduling modes: manual and automatic scheduling.
  • Dates can be selected freely in manual mode and will not be affected by relations.
  • The start date is automatically derived in automatic mode based on predecessors or children; the duration can still be manually input.
• In automatic mode, the date picker banners will give more helpful context about what the start date is derived from.
• The date picker will include tabs that list predecessors, followers and children.
• Scheduling mode for new work packages will be manual by default.
• New work packages will default to a single date mode with finish date only; users can easily switch to range mode by adding a start date or duration.

Your feedback

As an open source software company, we value the ideas and feedback of our user Community. This upcoming changes are directly a result of user feedback. If you have opinions about these changes or have feature requests, feel free to join our Community instance and share your thoughts on this feature. We hope you’re looking forward to this improvement as much as we are looking forward to releasing it.

The OpenProject integration app for Nextcloud reached version 2.7.2 earlier and was updated to version 2.8 today! ✨ This update ensures full support for the latest Nextcloud version 31, which was also released today.

This release requires OpenProject version 13.2 or newer. Update to the newest version of the app through your Nextcloud app center to take advantage of the latest enhancements and fixes.

Changes of the release 2.7.2:

• Fixed fatal error related to group folders
• UI/UX improvement: consistent element sizes in Create work package modal
• UI/UX improvement: accomodate long subject of a work package

Changes of the release 2.8.0:

• Support Nextcloud 31
• Correct encoding of the avatar url
• Expose OpenProject API endpoints as OCS endpoints

Thanks, Nextcloud, for our continued partnership! 💙

• Milestone

In this release, we have restarted to focus on features. A long-awaited feature has been added, namely sorting articles by various criteria: received date (existing, default), publication date, title, link, random.

A few highlights ✨:

• Add order-by options to sort articles by received date (existing, default), publication date, title, link, random
• Allow searching in all feeds, also feeds only visible at category level with &get=A, and also those archived with &get=Z
  • UI accessible from user-query view
• New shortcuts for adding user labels to articles
• Several improvements and bug fixes

This release has been made by @Alkarex, @b-reich, @hkcomori, @math-GH, @UserRoot-Luca
and newcomers @a6software, @aftix, @bl00dy1837, @brtmax, @Roan-V, @ShaddyDC, @UncleArya

Full changelog:

• Features
  • Add order-by options to sort articles by received date (existing, default), publication date, title, link, random #7149
  • Allow searching in all feeds, also feeds only visible at category level with &get=A, and also those archived with &get=Z #7144
    • UI accessible from user-query view
  • Add search operator intext: #7228
  • New shortcuts for adding user labels to articles #7274
  • New About page with system information #7161
• Bug fixing
  • Fix regression denying access to app manifest #7158
  • Fix unwanted feed description updates #7269
  • Ensure no PHP buffer for SQLite download (some setups would first put the file in memory) #7230
  • Fix XML encoding regression in HTML+XPath mode #7345
  • Improve cURL proxy options and fix some constants #7231
  • Fix UI of global view unread articles counter #7247
  • Hide base theme in carrousel #7234
• Deployment
  • Reduce superfluous Docker builds #7137
  • Docker default image (Debian 12 Bookworm) updated to PHP 8.2.26 and Apache 2.4.62
  • Docker alternative image (Alpine 3.21) updated to PHP 8.3.16
• UI
  • Add footer icons to reader view #7133
  • Remove local reference to font Open Sans to avoid bugs with some local versions #7215
  • Improve stats page layout #7243
  • Smaller mark as read button in mobile view #5220
  • Add CSS class to various types of notifications to allow custom styling #7287
  • Various UI and style improvements: #7162, #7268
    Security
  • Better authorization label for OIDC in the UI #7264
  • Allow comments in force-https.txt #7259
• I18n:
  • Improve German #7177, #7275, #7278
  • Improve Japanese #7187, #7195, #7332
• Misc.
  • Improve PHP code #7191, #7204
    • Upgrade to PHPStan 2 #7131, #7164, #7224,
      #7270, #7281, #7282
  • Update to CssXPath 1.3.0 (no change) #7211
  • Update dev dependencies #7165, #7166, #7167,
    #7279, #7280, #7283,
    #7284, #7285, #7347
  • Update GitHub Actions to Ubuntu 24.04 #7207

Today, we have released OpenProject 15.3. Among other changes, you can now create meeting series. This is a major update to our meetings module and a big improvement for organizing your recurring appointments within OpenProject. With this blog article, we will take a little tour to see how exactly you can do that.

Let’s take a quick look at the most important feature changes first:

• Schedule recurring meetings
• Create child work packages directly from the Relations tab
• Include total sums in timesheet PDF exports for better insights
• Include child work packages in cost reports for more accurate tracking
• See dates of previously hidden, permission-restricted relations to make informed scheduling decisions

This blog post explores recurring meetings, highlighting key improvements and how they can help teams stay organized. For more details on other changes, features and bug fixes in 15.3, check out our release notes.

Recurring meetings: Overview of changes in OpenProject 15.3

OpenProject 15.3 introduces over 20 improvements to the Meetings module. The most notable change is the Recurring meeting option, now available alongside One-time meetings and Classic meetings. So what was previously called Dynamic Meetings is now split into Recurring and One-time Meetings.

Image: The OpenProject Meetings module, with a dropdown menu for creating a new meeting: One-time, Recurring, and Classic.

In the past, if you wanted to set up regular meetings in OpenProject, you had to manually copy existing meetings for each new occurrence. This process was time-consuming and made it harder to keep track of recurring discussions.

With OpenProject 15.3, this changes: You can now schedule recurring meetings using templates. Instead of copying meetings manually, you set up a template once, define the schedule (e.g., every day, every working day, weekly), and OpenProject automatically creates future meetings for you.

Most important updates regarding Meetings:

• When creating a new meeting, you now have the option to choose a Recurring Meeting (or a One-time Meeting).
• The Classic Meeting still exists, but we will sunset that option once it becomes fully obsolete.
• The sidebar on the left has changed. It now shows existing meeting series, in addition to preset filters like My meetings or Recurring meetings.
• To switch between upcoming and past meetings, you now find buttons on top of each meeting overview page.

Here’s an example overview page of the updated Meetings module, filtered for ‘My meetings’:

Image: The OpenProject Meetings module, filtered for ‘My meetings’, showing upcoming meetings structured into Today, Tomorrow, and Next week or later. An additional section that is not shown in this example would be Later this week.

Example: Scheduling a monthly team meeting on Thursdays at 10:00

Let’s say your team holds a team meeting every four weeks on Thursday at 10:00 AM.

Previously:

• You had to manually copy the meeting for each new meeting.
• Setting up a consistent structure (agenda, participants) required manual effort.
• It was difficult to track and manage recurring meetings in a clear overview.

Now with recurring meetings:

1. Create a new meeting and select Recurring meeting.
2. Set the recurrence to Weekly.
3. Adjust the Interval to 4 – this means the meeting repeats every 4 weeks.
4. OpenProject will display: Every 4 weeks on Thursday at 10:00.
5. Choose when the meetings series ends:
   • Never
   • After a specific date
   • After a set number of occurrences

Tip

Please note that you can create flexible meeting schedules by combining a frequency (daily or weekly) with an interval (e.g., 4, meaning every 4 days or every 4 weeks). More advanced monthly options are currently not available yet. If you want to cast your vote on this feature, please see https://community.openproject.org/work_packages/61522.

Image: Your options when creating a new recurring meeting – Project, Title, Location, Dates, Duration, Frequency, Interval and End of the series.

Meeting templates

Use templates to prefill each recurring meeting occurrence with some general agenda items and sections. We at OpenProject for example structure our weekly all-hands meeting in sections for each department, a “Good News” section, one for customer and user feedback, and so on. This way, the meeting is always structured in the same way and, for a specific date, attendants only have to add their agenda items or work packages to the respective sections.

Of course, you can adjust the template anytime and also edit each meeting occurrence so that it differs from the template.

Image: The OpenProject Meetings module, showing an empty template agenda and a note that you are editing a template that every new occurrence of a meeting in the series will use.

Meeting series

Once you created a recurring meeting, it will be displayed in the left side menu under Meeting series. Here, you can switch again between upcoming and past, while the default view is upcoming meeting occurrences, divided into Open and Planned. OpenProject opens the agenda of the next meeting for you as soon as the previous has started. This way, you can already start adding agenda items to the next meeting during your appointment, which can be quite helpful. Additionally, you can open any planned meeting by clicking on the Open button in the list. This action moves the occurrence up and lists it under Open. Open meetings are clickable, so that you can change the agenda.

Here is a screenshot showing the team meeting series from our example above:

Image: Example meeting series: Marketing monthly, two occurrences are displayed under Open, three under the section Planned.

More to come: Agenda item outcomes (Meeting minutes)

While Recurring meetings improve scheduling, we’re already working on the next major enhancement: Agenda item outcomes (Feature work package).

With this update, you’ll be able to take minutes, note decisions, and create follow-up work packages from agenda items in meetings. Regarding recurring meetings, agenda items without outcomes might be transferred to an upcoming meeting. This will be another major improvement to provide users with a structured and efficient meetings module.

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OpenProject 15.3: Migration, installation, updates and support

Follow the upgrade guide for the packaged installation or Docker installation to update your OpenProject installation to OpenProject 15.3. We update your hosted OpenProject environments (Enterprise cloud) today, February 19, 2025.

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

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

• New to OpenProject? To test all features of OpenProject 15.3 right away, create a 14 days free trial instance for our OpenProject Enterprise cloud.
• Prefer to run OpenProject 15.3 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.

Credits

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

Also, a big thanks to our Community members for reporting bugs and helping us identify and provide fixes. Special thanks for reporting and finding bugs go to Luka Bradesko, Max Mutzge, Lars Geiger, Rudi B., Alexander Aleschenko, Alex Fantini, and Peter Wafzig.

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 highlight

• greench, for an outstanding number of translations into Turkish.
• Kuma Yamashita, for a great number of translations into Japanese.
• Willers-ICT, for a great number of translations into Dutch.
• Vlastislav Dockal, for a great number of translations into Czech.

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. 💙

Transparency is a cornerstone of OpenProject’s open source values. By sharing our roadmap openly, we invite you to see where the software is heading, align your workflows with upcoming features, and actively contribute to the development process. At openproject.org/roadmap, you can continuously track which features are planned for which dates — while keeping in mind that plans may evolve.

This article provides a focused summary of our current priorities for 2025, looking beyond individual features to highlight overarching goals. Discover what’s planned for OpenProject in 2025!

Overview: Current focus topics for developing OpenProject

Here is a brief overview of the key areas we’re focusing on to make OpenProject even more valuable in 2025:

1. Project portfolio management
2. Team collaboration
3. Integrations and API solutions
4. User experience and accessibility
5. Mobile app

Let’s take a closer look at each of these topics, highlighting exemplary features and why they’re planned for this year.

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OpenProject’s focus on project portfolio management

Managing multiple projects efficiently is a critical challenge for many organizations. Our focus on project portfolio management in 2025 is planned to help you maintain clarity, prioritize effectively, and make strategic decisions across your portfolio.

Roadmap 2025: Planned portfolio management features

• Q1: Project start and finish date
• Q1: Project lifecycle with stages and gates
• Q2: Filter options for included projects
• Q2: Project prioritization features
• Q3/Q4: Grant read and write permissions on project attributes by role

One of the exciting upcoming features regarding project portfolio management is the project lifecycle with stages and gates. These represent specific phases (stages) and critical decision points (gates) in a project lifecycle. By integrating these into the system, project portfolio managers will be able to better track and manage projects as they progress through different stages.

Image: Preview OpenProject 2025 – Project lifecycle with stages and gates - administration. Please note that the feature is still in development and this is just a preview.

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OpenProject’s focus on team collaboration

Collaboration is the foundation of successful project management. In 2025, we’re planning enhancements to help teams communicate, coordinate, and work together seamlessly.

Roadmap 2025: Planned collaboration features

• Q1: Advanced features for the meetings module
• Q2: Automatically create work packages by email
• Q3: Work packages with reduced visibility (private work packages)
• Q3: Multiple assignees without group creation
• Q3/Q4: Open points which can be linked to work packages and meetings
• Q3/Q4: Improved global search bar

Meetings play an essential role in project collaboration – for companies of all sizes. That’s why we’re excited to continue improving our dynamic meetings module this year. Some key features will be the ability to take meeting minutes during the meeting as well as recurring meetings.

Image: Preview OpenProject 2025 – Recurring meetings. Please note that the feature is still in development and this is just a preview.

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OpenProject’s focus on integrations and API solutions

Integrations and API solutions remain a priority to ensure OpenProject works seamlessly with other tools in your ecosystem. These planned improvements aim to make workflows smoother and more connected.

Roadmap 2025: Planned integrations

• Q1: Seamless integration of user sessions of Nextcloud and OpenProject
• Q3/Q4: Integration between OpenProject and Element
• Q3/Q4: Integration between OpenProject and XWiki
• Q3/Q4: SCIM server functionality via SCIM API

The Nextcloud integration for OpenProject has played a central role in file management for years. We are very happy about this collaboration and look forward to developing further integrations with valued open source partners such as Element and XWiki soon.

Find out more about integrations for OpenProject.

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OpenProject’s focus on user experience and accessibility

Making OpenProject more intuitive and accessible is an ongoing goal. We aim to ensure that every user, regardless of their technical background or abilities, can benefit from the software. In 2023, we started introducing the Primer design system and continued applying it last year. In 2025, we will continue applying standardized components to missing pages and improving accessibility, with a special focus on the Scrum module. Learn more about the Primer design system for OpenProject.

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Mobile app

In 2025, we continue developing our mobile app, which is not yet publicly available. While most of our developers are focused on the web app, we are excited about the progress of our mobile app. Stay tuned for updates as we work toward delivering a powerful mobile experience.

Image: The OpenProject mobile app Home screen in an alpha version. Please note that the app is still in development and this is just a preview.

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Your feedback, ideas, and wishes for our roadmap

Your opinion matters: Are these planned features useful to you? Is anything missing that you really wish for? We would love to hear from you.

As an open source company, we work in the open. So if you would like to participate in OpenProject, join our Community instance to request features, report bugs, and get early access to upcoming releases. See this guide to our Community instance to learn how exactly you can contribute.

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Stay connected

Apart from using our Community instance, there are other ways to stay informed about OpenProject:

• Subscribe to our monthly newsletter
• Star our GitHub repository
• Watch tutorials and other videos on our YouTube channel
• Follow us on LinkedIn
• Follow us on Reddit
• Follow us on Fosstodon
• Follow us on Bluesky
• Follow us on Twitter/X

We are very happy to announce the release of OpenProject 15.2. With this update, users are now able to set reminders for work packages to never forget about a task again. Another great features are:

• Export timesheets as PDF
• Add a lag to Predecessor/Successor relations
• Create a new folder directly when using file storages integrations
• Group and order by for custom fields of type hierarchy
• Popover on user information on hover

… as well as a continued update of page headers and subheaders.

In this blog article, we’ll examine the feature of setting reminders for work packages along with the feature of exporting time tracked in work packages now as PDF. To learn more about the other features and bug fixes included in version 15.2, please check out our release notes.

Set reminders for work packages

With OpenProject 15.2, you can stay on top of your tasks with the new Reminder feature. Need a nudge about a work package at a later time? Simply open the work package, click the new Reminder icon, and set the date and time for your reminder. When the moment comes, you’ll receive a notification in your notification center, ensuring you never miss a critical task.

Simply click on the Reminder icon and specify when you would like to be notified:

We expect this feature to help many users to organize themselves even better and to keep the notification center free of outdated reminders. Maybe it has happened to you that you don’t mark notifications as read because you want to edit or view the corresponding work package later. However, this causes your notification center inbox to grow over time and become more and more cluttered.

In addition, it can often happen in your daily work that you have a work package open which you would like to look at again later – today, or days or weeks later. This is especially true in management positions if you want to monitor the progress of a task.

With the new reminder feature, you can now focus on your most urgent work and let OpenProject remind you of the work packages that will become relevant at a later point in time.

Export timesheets as PDF

Time tracking - and reporting in a nicely styled document – grows more and more important for many companies and freelancers. Until now, you could export your OpenProject timesheets to Excel.

With OpenProject 15.2, exporting time reports just got more flexible! You can now also generate PDF timesheets in the Time and Costs module. Simply set up your report filters, click the Export PDF timesheet button, and download a polished, easy-to-share PDF report.

Important

Please note that for now, the PDF export focuses exclusively on time entries and does not include cost data.

Here’s an example:

… And this is how the generated PDF will look like:

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OpenProject 15.2: Migration, Installation, Updates and Support

Follow the upgrade guide for the packaged installation or Docker installation to update your OpenProject installation to OpenProject 15.2. We update your hosted OpenProject environments (Enterprise cloud) today, January 22, 2025.

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

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

• New to OpenProject? To test all features of OpenProject 15.2 right away, create a 14 days free trial instance for our OpenProject Enterprise cloud.
• Prefer to run OpenProject 15.2 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.

Credits

A very special thank you goes to the City of Cologne and ZenDiS for sponsoring parts of this release. 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 Stefan Weiberg.

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

• atifahnordin, for an outstanding number of translations into Malay.
• Vlastislav Dockal, for a great number of translations into Czech.
• Alin Marcu, for a great number of translations into Romanian.
• Yuliia Pavliuk, for a great number of translations into Ukrainian.

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. 💙

• Milestone

In this release, the coding focus has been on moving to PHP 8.1+ and refactoring the integration of the SimplePie library (which was long due). At the same time, plenty of new features have been added. Enjoy! 🎄

Breaking changes 💥:

• Require PHP 8.1+ (and improved support of PHP 8.4+)
• Require PostgreSQL 10+ or MariaDB 10.0.5+ or MySQL 8+

A few highlights ✨:

• Add support for regex search (regular expressions)
  • ⚠️ Advanced regex syntax for searches depends on the database used (SQLite, PostgreSQL, MariaDB, MySQL),
    but FreshRSS filter actions such as auto-mark-as-read and auto-favourite always use PHP PCRE2 syntax.
• Allow dynamic search operator in user queries, like search:UserQueryA date:P1d
• New feed mode HTML+XPath+JSON dot notation (JSON in HTML)
• Better HTTP compliance with support for HTTP response headers Cache-Control: max-age and Expires
• New unicity policies and heuristic for feeds with bad article IDs (reduce the problem of duplicated articles)
• New option to automatically mark new articles as read if an identical title already exists in the same category
• Add ability to remove content from articles with CSS selectors, also when not using full content
• New condition option to selectively retrieve full content of articles
• New UI feature to download a user’ SQLite database or a database SQLite export (to be produced by CLI)
• Supported by Capy Reader (Android, open source)
• Many bug fixes, UI improvements, and a lot more

This release has been made by @aledeg, @Alkarex, @Art4, @ColonelMoutarde, @Frenzie, @math-GH, @ramazansancar
and newcomers @DevGrohl, @UserRoot-Luca, @aarnej, @andrey-utkin, @bhj, @christophehenry, @davralin, @drego85, @ev-gor, @killerog, @kwarraich, @minna-xD, @mtalexan, @oshaposhnyk, @patHyatt

Full changelog:

• Features
  • Add support for regex search (regular expressions) #6706, #6926
    • ⚠️ Advanced regex syntax for searches depends on the database used (SQLite, PostgreSQL, MariaDB, MySQL),
      but FreshRSS filter actions such as auto-mark-as-read and auto-favourite always use PHP PCRE2 syntax.
  • Allow dynamic search operator in user queries, like search:UserQueryA date:P1d #6851
  • New feed mode HTML+XPath+JSON dot notation (JSON in HTML) #6888
  • Better HTTP compliance with support for HTTP response headers Cache-Control: max-age and Expires #6812, FreshRSS/simplepie#26
  • Support custom HTTP request headers per feed (e.g. for Authorization) #6820
  • New unicity policies and heuristic for feeds with bad article IDs #4487, #6900
  • Fallback to GUID if article link is empty #7051
  • New option to automatically mark new articles as read if an identical title already exists in the same category #6922
  • New reading view option to display unread articles + favourites #7088
    • And corresponding new filter state &state=96 (no UI button yet)
  • Add ability to remove content from articles with CSS selectors, also when not using full content #6786, #6807
  • Update phpgt/cssxpath library with improved CSS selectors #6618
    • Support for :last-child, :first-of-type, :last-of-type, ^=, |=
  • New condition option to selectively retrieve full content of articles
    #33fd07f6f26310d4806077cc87bcdf9b8b940e35, #7082
  • Allow parentheses in quoted search #7055
  • New UI feature to download a user’ SQLite database or a database SQLite export (to be produced by CLI) #6931
  • New button to delete errored feeds from a category #7030
  • Better import of Inoreader user labels #6791
  • Rebuild feed favicon on cache clear #6961
  • New sharing with Bluesky #7116
  • New sharing with Telegram #6838
• Bug fixing
  • Fix searches with a parenthesis before an operator like ("a b") or (!c) #6818
  • Fix auto-read tags #6790
  • Fix CSS selector for removing elements #7037, #7073,
    #7081, #7091, #7083
  • Fix redirection error after creating a new user #6995
  • Fix favicon error in case of wrong URL #6899
  • Use cURL to fetch extensions list (allows e.g. IPv6) #6767
  • Fix XML encoding in cURL options #6821
  • Fix initial UI scroll for some browsers #7059
  • Fix menu for article tags in some cases #6990
  • Fix share menu shortcut #6825
  • Fix HTML regex pattern during install for compatibility with v mode #7009
  • More robust creation of user data folder #7000
• API
  • Fix API for categories and labels containing a + #7033
    • Compatibility with FocusReader
  • Supported by Capy Reader (Android, open source) capyreader#492
  • Improved UI for API #7048
  • Allow adding multiple feeds to a category via API #7017
  • API support edit multiple tags #7060
  • API return all categories also those without any feed #7020
• Compatibility
  • Require PHP 8.1+ (drop PHP 7.4) #6711
  • Improved support of PHP 8.4+ #6618, PhpGt/CssXPath#227,
    #6781, #4374
  • Require PostgreSQL 10+ (drop PostgreSQL 9.5) #6705
  • Require MariaDB 10.0.5+ (drop MariaDB 5.5) #6706
  • Requiring MySQL 8+ (drop MySQL 5.5.3) #6706
• Deployment
  • Docker: dev image freshrss/freshrss:oldest updated to Alpine 3.16 with PHP 8.1.22 and Apache 2.4.59 #6711
  • Docker alternative image updated to Alpine 3.21 with PHP 8.3.14 and Apache 2.4.62 #5383
  • Update Dockerfiles to newer key-value format #6819
  • Docker minor improvement of entrypoint #6827
• SimplePie
  • Refactor our embedding of SimplePie #4374
    • Our fork is maintained in its own repository.
  • Remove HTTP Referer #6822, FreshRSS/simplepie#27
    • If some sites require it, add Referer: https://example.net/ to the custom HTTP headers of the feed #6820
  • Upstream fixes simplepie#878, simplepie#883
  • Sync upstream #6840, #7067
• Security
  • Apache protect more non-public folders and files #6881, #6893, #7008
  • Add privacy settings on extension list retrieval #4603, #7132
  • Fix login in unsafe mode when using a password with special XML characters #6797
  • Fix login in e.g. Brave browser by avoiding synchronous XHR #7023
  • Fix invalid login message #7066
  • Modernise windows.open noopener (to avoid flash of white page in dark mode) #7077, #7089
• UI
  • Searchable My Labels field #6753
  • Add subscription management button to reading view #6946
  • New option for showing label menu in article row #6984
  • Move to next unread label on mark as read #6886
  • Improved article footer for small / mobile screens #7031
  • Improve Web accessibility: fix aria-hidden bug, and use HTML5 hidden #6910
  • Default styles for <pre> and <code> #6770
  • Refactor the sharing menu to use a <template> instead of duplicated HTML code #6751, #7113
  • Refactor the label menu to use a <template> #6864
  • Rework UI for authors #7054
    • Avoid Unicode escape of authors in HTML UI #7056
  • Improved subscription management page #6816
  • Improve user query management page #7062
  • Restore JavaScript form validation compatibility with Web browsers using older engines (SeaMonkey) #6777
  • Reorganise some options #6920
  • New shortcut ? to show shortcut page and help #6981
  • Use of consistent colours in statistics #7090
  • Various UI and style improvements #6959
• Extensions
  • New extension hook simplepie_after_init #7007
• I18n
  • Add Finnish #6954
  • Improve English #7049, #7053
  • Improve German #6847, #7068, #7128
  • Improve Italian #6872, #7069, #7086
  • Improve Spanish #6894, #6908
  • Improve Turkish #6960
• Misc.
  • Better cache name for JSON feeds #6768
  • Fix inversed encoding logic in Minz_Request::paramArray() #6800
  • Pass PHPStan booleansInConditions #6793
  • Rename PHPStan configuration file to phpstan.dist.neon to allow custom configuration in phpstan.neon #6892
  • Code improvements #6800, #6809, #6983
  • Makefile improvements #6913
  • Fix PHPCS ControlSignature #6896
  • Update PHPMailer #6968, #7046
  • Code updates to PHP 8.1 syntax #6748
  • Update dev dependencies #6780, #6964, , #6965,
    #6966, #6967, #6970,
    #7042, #7043, #7044,
    #7045, #7047, #7052

Another year is almost over! Given the current difficult economic and political situation around us, we are more than grateful and proud of this successful year in which OpenProject has once again grown and made great progress. This is in particular due to our amazing team working hard to continuously improve this open source software in many ways, the fantastic users and customers and of course a vibrant and very engaged Community that support us throughout the year.

Let’s take some time to look back: What happened at OpenProject 2024? Spoiler alert – we released almost 30 new versions this year! With so many changes and updates, a summary of the highlights is particularly valuable. So please sit back and join us on a little journey through the last 12 months in this article. There is a high probability that you will discover (or rediscover) a feature that will help you achieve your 2025 goals. 🏆

Quick navigation:

• Highlight features of 2024
• Design improvements in 2024
• Launch of openDesk 1.0
• Company and culture
• Roadmap for 2025

28 new versions released in one year

From January 17 to December 11, 2024, 28 versions were released for OpenProject. Of these, 2 were major, 10 minor and 16 patch releases. Comparing to the previous year: In 2023, there were only twelve releases in total, less than half as many as this year. This is due to our decision at the beginning of 2024 to release one minor/major release every month. The reason for this is to provide users with finished features and improvements directly – even if they are small. In addition, our team has grown, enabling us to develop faster and to get user feedback more quickly – to then be able to quickly react to it.

After one year of monthly releases, we are very interested to know: As an OpenProject user or administrator, what do you think of this monthly cycle? Do you appreciate getting new features much quicker? Please write us your feedback or exchange ideas with other users in our Community Forums.

Highlight features of 2024

With all these new versions, let’s take a closer look at our highlight features that were released in 2024:

Starting December 2023: A OneDrive/SharePoint integration (Enterprise add-on)

In December 2023, we introduced a OneDrive/SharePoint integration as an Enterprise add-on. This integration allows you to link files and folders from OneDrive or SharePoint directly to work packages in OpenProject. It simplifies access to important project documents by keeping everything in one place. You can add a specific folder for each project with automatically managed permissions. This also enables to create project templates with a pre-defined folder structure and linked file templates.

Furthermore, we have continued to improve this integration during the year, by adding

• project folders,
• a connection validation ,
• and the ability to activate storage for multiple projects at once.

For more information on setting up and using this feature, please refer to our OneDrive/SharePoint Integration Guide. To get an overview of all OpenProject’s integrations, take a look at our new integrations overview page.

Starting February 2024: Custom project lists

We would like to thank the City of Cologne for sponsoring great updates on project lists in 2024.

In February 2024, we introduced features to filter and save custom project lists. This allows you to create personalized views of your projects by applying filters and saving these configurations for quick access. It helps project portfolio managers keep on top of things, especially when handling numerous projects.

In July 2024, we enhanced project portfolio management by allowing users to mark project lists as favorites and share them. You can now easily access frequently used project lists by marking them as favorites, streamlining your workflow. Additionally, sharing project lists with the entire instance is available in the Community edition, while sharing with specific users or groups is offered as an Enterprise add-on, fostering better collaboration.

For complete information on how to set up and use project lists, check out our user guide.

March 2024: A GitLab integration

In March 2024, we introduced a GitLab integration, which was developed from a Community plugin. This feature allows you to link GitLab merge requests and issues directly to work packages in OpenProject, streamlining collaboration between development and project management teams. By connecting these elements, you can monitor development progress and maintain a unified workflow.

For more information on setting up and using this feature, please refer to our GitLab Integration Guide. To get an overview of all OpenProject’s integrations, take a look at our new integrations overview page.

Starting April 2024: Progress reporting across work package hierarchies

In April 2024, we enhanced progress reporting across work package hierarchies. This improvement provides a cohesive overview of estimates, effort, and progress, especially beneficial for multi-project management. By linking progress tracking with time entries and extending it across hierarchies, you gain a clearer picture of your project’s status.

In June 2024, we enhanced progress reporting again by allowing time entries to be recorded in days, in addition to hours. This flexibility enables teams to log work and remaining work in the unit that best fits their workflow, improving accuracy in time tracking. Administrators can define the number of hours that constitute a working day to align with organizational standards.

Later in October 2024, we made this feature more flexible, by allowing manual editing of the % Complete field and introducing new settings for progress calculation, giving administrators greater control over progress tracking.

Learn more about progress tracking and reporting with OpenProject.

May 2024: PDF export of Gantt charts (Enterprise add-on)

In May 2024, we introduced the PDF export of Gantt charts as an Enterprise add-on. This feature allows you to export your Gantt chart views to PDF format, facilitating easy sharing and printing of project timelines. It enhances project documentation and communication by providing a portable format for your schedules. Later in the year, we improved this feature by adding options for paper size selection and date zoom levels, offering more flexibility in your exports.

Read all about OpenProject’s Gantt charts in our user guide.

August 2024: A dark mode

In August 2024, we introduced a dark mode to enhance user experience. This feature provides an alternative visual theme with light text on a dark background, reducing eye strain in low-light environments and offering an aesthetically pleasing interface. Users can enable dark mode by navigating to My account > Settings and selecting Dark under the Mode option. This setting applies individually, allowing each user to choose their preferred display without affecting the entire instance.

September 2024: Restore local backups in text editor

In September 2024, we introduced the ability to restore local backups within the WYSIWYG text editor. This seems like a small feature, but is very valuable as it allows users to recover unsaved content changes in work package descriptions or wikis. So this feature prevents data loss due to accidental closures or crashes. By clicking the clock icon in the editor’s header, you can access and restore previous versions of your content, each marked with a timestamp and word count. This enhancement ensures that your work is safeguarded and easily retrievable.

See our user guide for information on editing and updating a work package.

November 2024: Emoji reactions and more in the new Activity tab

In November 2024, we unveiled a redesigned Activity tab for work packages, enhancing communication and collaboration. The new design offers a cleaner, more structured interface, aligning with GitHub’s Primer design system. Key improvements include:

• Real-time updates: Comments and notifications now load instantly, eliminating the need for page refreshes.
• Emoji reactions: Users can respond to comments with a selection of eight emojis, making interactions more engaging.
• Fixed comment box: The input field is anchored at the bottom for easy access.
• Filtering and sorting: Options to filter by all activities, comments only, or changes only, and to sort by newest or oldest first.

December 2024: Custom fields of type hierarchy (Enterprise add-on)

Our last bigger release in 2024 included an Enterprise add-on to create custom fields of type hierarchy. It allows users to structure data further into multi-level selections within custom fields, making it easier to categorize and manage complex information in work packages. Whether you’re organizing locations, structuring teams, or categorizing products, this feature adds clarity and precision to your workflows.

See this blog article to read some examples on how to use custom fields type hierarchy.

Design improvements in 2024

If you have been following OpenProject and our updates for a while, you will know that we started a major design change last year. In September 2023, we reported that we wanted to adopt the design system Primer from GitHub and that we would be incorporating it into the application in many small iterations.

In the course of 2024, we have already updated some parts to the new design. In addition to the more modern, user-friendly design, we have improved features in some places at the same time, such as the dropdown function in the relations tab on work packages.

Have you noticed these design changes? How do you like them?

In 2025, we will continue to adapt further areas of OpenProject to the Primer design system. Thank you for your patience and understanding that such changes can only be implemented step by step. This way, we have capacities for new great features, bug fixes and further innovations in addition to the design adjustments.

Launch of openDesk 1.0

OpenProject is driven by values around open source and data sovereignty. Therefore, it is very important to us to collaborate with other great open source software providers. On the one hand, we do this in the form of providing integrations, as we have done so far with Nextcloud, for example, with further integrations planned with XWiki and Element on our roadmap.

But these software providers have something else in common with OpenProject: We are all part of openDesk, your secure office and collaboration suite.

During the Smart Country Convention in Berlin this October, openDesk 1.0 was officially launched. We are excited about this big step and look forward to the first in-depth user experiences.

Company and culture at OpenProject 2024

We are immensely proud of how well OpenProject as an organization and we as a team have developed and grown in 2024. We were able to attract a large number of exceptional people and also win some of them back.

Our new team members

The best part of growth are the new team members who strengthen and professionalize the team. In 2024, our team has grown again – a warm welcome to every new team member!

• Jen, Marketing & Community Manager US
• Cécile, Senior Software QA Engineer
• Ivan, Senior Software Engineer
• Simon, Support Specialist
• Judith, Senior Software Engineer
• Giuseppe, People & Organization Manager
• Dorothee, People & Organization Manager
• Tobias, Senior Software Engineer
• Oleksii, App Developer
• Bruno, Senior Software Engineer
• Alex, Senior Software Engineer
• Jan, Senior Software Engineer
• Vanessa, Team & Accounting Assistant

Note

Interested in seeing your name on this list next year? We at OpenProject are happy to welcome new colleagues who are passionate about open source. Click here to see our vacancies.

Team meetups and official events

We also had some wonderful team highlights in 2024. The most important is probably our annual team offsite. As much as we welcome and have embraced remote working, it’s also nice to get together with the team in person from time to time. This year we met in Berlin at Wannsee for our company offsite and worked, laughed, spent time together and strengthened our bond.

In this Video (Youtube) you can get a little insight into our offsite 2024.

Furthermore, we attended several conferences again this year, such as the Univention Summit, FOSDEM (watch our talk at FOSDEM 2024), Nextcloud Community and Enterprise days, the Smart Country Convention and the Open Source Experience. These fairs are always a great opportunity to get in touch with our users and the Community.

Roadmap for 2025

Of course, we have some exciting updates on our roadmap for 2025. Please feel free to check back at www.openproject.org/roadmap to see which features are planned for which approximate time frame. Please also keep in mind that we develop in an agile way and that plans are always subject to change.

One topic in particular will be on our minds in 2025: As requested by many users, we have been working on a mobile app for some time now, which is scheduled for release in the course of the coming year. We will publish more detailed information as soon as the scope and release date become clearer.

Stay up to date regularly, it’s worth it! We particularly recommend subscribing to our newsletter, which informs you about new versions and features at least once a month.

Feel free to visit and subscribe to our social networks to get all the information directly:

• Follow us on LinkedIn
• Follow us on Reddit
• Follow us on Fosstodon
• Follow us on Twitter/X
• Follow us on Bluesky
• Watch tutorials and other videos on our YouTube channel

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Thank you 💙

That was our summary of 2024. What did you particularly like? Where would you like to see changes? Please do not hesitate to contact us and give us honest feedback. We would also like to take this opportunity to refer you to our Community forums, where you can exchange ideas with other users about OpenProject.

If you would like to contribute to OpenProject, please visit our Contributions guide that we recently created, as so many of you asked how to support us. You can help by translating OpenProject, by reporting bugs or submitting feature ideas. You can also help by contributing to our documentation. And of course, if you spread the word, link to our website or give us a testimonial for us to publish, this also helps a lot.

Many thanks to everyone who has accompanied and supported us again this year! To our great Community, which supports us in so many ways with bug reports, translations and more. To our sponsors, who enable growth and innovation. And to our team, who did a great job again in 2024 and contributed to becoming the leading project management software for data conscious organizations. True to our vision, to achieve great things for the good of society.

And with that, we wish you a good break between the years and a powerful start to the new year 2025! 🌟

With the release of OpenProject 15.1, the design of the Relations tab for work packages has been improved, but some customers miss the feature of being able to create corresponding sub-tasks (children) or other related work packages directly. Don’t worry: we are already working on a feature that will soon make it possible to create relations directly from the Relations tab again.

In addition to that, there is a clever workaround for displaying a table of related work packages:

How to: Add a table of related work packages to a work package form (Enterprise add-on)

While the redesigned Relations tab improves clarity and usability, you can use a clever workaround to display related work packages directly within a work package form. This approach allows you to maintain an overview of related tasks or items at a glance.

Steps for admins to configure the table:

1. Navigate to Administration > Work packages > Types.
2. Choose the work package type you want to configure (e.g. Epics) and access the Form configuration tab.
3. Click on +Group and select Add table of related work packages.
4. Specify in the filter the relation you want to be displayed (e.g. Children) and sort your table as you like.
5. Name your new group.
6. Click Apply and then Save your changes.

With this setup, users can view all related work packages directly on the form, providing a clear and centralized overview of connections and dependencies. This is how the work package could look like with the set-up that we described above:

For more details, check out our documentation.

When will I be able to add children directly in the Relations tab of a work package?

We are already working on a feature to make it possible again to add children directly in the Relations tab of a work package. As the holiday season approaches, it will be included in a release early 2025. As we work in an agile way, we constantly update OpenProject. This allows us to enable features almost right away. Thank you for your understanding and your patience. We hope that the workaround that we described above will help you in the meantime.

Tip: Visit our Community instance to test features on advance

On our Community instance, we do not only develop our product out in the open, but also deploy a new version a few days or even weeks in advance of the official release. Check out our guide to the Community instance to learn more.

We are excited to announce the release of OpenProject 15.1! This update introduces custom fields of type hierarchy (Enterprise add-on), allowing you to structure complex data into multiple levels. Particularly beneficial for larger organizations, this feature streamlines workflows and improves data clarity.

In this blog article, we’ll explore three practical examples of how hierarchical custom fields can be used. For a complete list of all features and bug fixes included in version 15.1, please check out our release notes.

List of important features with OpenProject 15.1

Let’s start with a list of the key features of OpenProject 15.1:

• Custom fields of type hierarchy (Enterprise add-on)
• Redesign of the Relations tab in work packages
• Redesign of the Meetings index page
• Manual page breaks in PDF work package exports
• Zen mode for project lists

In the linked release notes sections, you will find all information on these highlight features for OpenProject 15.1.

In this blog article, we will take a closer look at the new Enterprise add-on and examples on how to use custom fields of type hierarchy.

Custom fields of type hierarchy (Enterprise add-on)

The new custom field type hierarchy introduces multi-level selections make it much easier to organize and navigate complex data in work packages. This feature allows users to structure items into multiple levels, streamlining data categorization and improving clarity.

With hierarchical custom fields, users can assign short identifiers (e.g., “B” for Berlin) to levels, creating a logical and accessible framework. For example, you can use this feature to categorize workspaces with precision, ensuring detailed data is well-organized and easy to manage.

In our system admin guide, you can learn how to create new custom fields of type hierarchy.

But how can you make the most of this new capability? Let’s explore three use cases where hierarchical custom fields can add real value.

• Example 1: Location details and room numbers
• Example 2: Organizational structures
• Example 3: Product categorization

Example 1: Location details and room numbers

In real estate management, keeping track of detailed location information across multiple properties can be a complex task. Hierarchical custom fields in OpenProject simplify this by creating structured levels for properties and their components. For example:

• Level 1: Property – “Greenwood Apartments”
• Level 2: Building – “Building A”
• Level 3: Floor – “3rd floor”
• Level 4: Room – “Room 305”

With this structure, a maintenance task could be assigned to Greenwood Apartments > Building A > 3rd floor > Room 305. This ensures that the team knows exactly where to focus their efforts, reducing the risk of misunderstandings.

This approach is not only helpful for property management but also for companies with multiple sites or regional offices. By using a custom field to hierarchically structure locations, it becomes easy to specify location-based work packages, such as events.

Below is an example screenshot of a work package type ‘Event’ that includes the custom field ‘Location’, as described above:

Example 2: Organizational structures

Managing workflows in large organizations can be complex, especially across departments, teams, and locations. Hierarchical custom fields make it easier to categorize and track tasks at any level. For example:

• Level 1: Organization – TechSolutions Inc.
• Level 2: Location – Australia
• Level 3: Department – Engineering
• Level 4: Team – Frontend Engineering

If you have multiple ‘Frontend Engineering’ teams in different locations, the hierarchy field specifies exactly which team is responsible, such as the one in Australia. This avoids confusion, ensures tasks are directed to the correct group, and improves transparency.

Here is an example of how an admin could use custom fields type hierarchy to structure and specify the different Engineering teams:

… And this is how this custom field would look like in the fourth level:

Example 3: Product Categorization

In product development, clear categorization is critical to organizing and aligning projects. Hierarchical custom fields help structure products so teams can easily navigate them. For example:

• Level 1: Product Line – Electronics
• Level 2: Product Category – Laptops
• Level 3: Model/Version – ProBook X200

With this hierarchy in place, a task like “Update firmware” can be assigned specifically to the product line Electronics > Laptops > ProBook X200. Admins can adjust these fields as product lines evolve, making the structure both robust and adaptable.

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OpenProject 15.1: Migration, Installation, Updates and Support

Follow the upgrade guide for the packaged installation or Docker installation to update your OpenProject installation to OpenProject 15.1. We update your hosted OpenProject environments (Enterprise cloud) today, December 11, 2024.

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

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

• New to OpenProject? To test all features of OpenProject 15.1 right away, create a 14 days free trial instance for our OpenProject Enterprise cloud.
• Prefer to run OpenProject 15.1 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.

Credits

A very special thank you goes to Deutsche Bahn and City of Cologne for sponsoring parts of this release. 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 Bill Bai, Sam Yelman, Knight Chang, Gábor Alexovics, Gregor Buergisser, Andrey Dermeyko, Various Interactive, Clayton Belcher, Александр Татаринцев, and Keno Krewer.

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 highlight

• Alexander Aleschenko, for an outstanding number of translations into Russian.
• José Helbert Pina, for a great number of translations into Portuguese.
• BigSeung, for a great number of translations into Korean.

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. 💙