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Looking back: OpenProject's highlights of 2023

Published by Corinna Günther December 19, 2023 Estimated reading time: 14 minutes

The year 2023 will soon be over and so we look back: What happened at OpenProject this year? What were the highlight features and changes to the software - and what also happened in the OpenProject team?

We are proud of two major feature releases that will make the daily work of many OpenProject users even easier. In 2023, we have also taken another big step towards interoperability, sovereignty and accessibility while remaining true to our open source values. Let us share some of our highlights from 2023 with you.

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If you’re new to OpenProject or want to recommend it to your colleagues, take a look at our new introduction video “Why OpenProject?”.

Highlight features 2023

Our commitment to further develop OpenProject remains at the highest level. Throughout this year, we’ve introduced numerous new features, engaging in a comprehensive process that included specification, design, development, testing, documentation, code optimization, bug resolution, and UX/UI enhancements. Here are just some of 2023’s highlight features (storages updates in particular will be summarized in a separate section below):

OpenProject 12.5

We released OpenProject 12.5 in March 2023. Although this was just a minor release, users have benefited from a large number of innovations. Here are the highlight features of OpenProject 12.5:

Setting public holidays as non-working days
OpenProject allows you to specify which days are working days and non-working days each week at the instance level. Since OpenProject 12.5, you are able to include extra non-working days, such as public holidays or days of closure. As a result, work packages cannot commence or conclude on these dates, and these days are not included in the calculation of a work package’s duration.

Show changes of project attributes in project activity view
Since OpenProject 12.5, the Activity view tracks changes in project attributes and custom fields of the project.

OpenProject 13.0

We released OpenProject 13.0 in August 2023. This release was packed with new highlight features, here is just a selection:

Baseline comparison
This Enterprise add-on enables users to get a quick overview of what has changed over time in your project. Reportings on project status and progress are much easier with Baseline. Enabling the Baseline feature for a work package table reveals all the modifications in this view over a specified time period. See our user guide for more information on Baseline.

PDF export of work plans
OpenProject’s PDF Export feature has been enhanced in version 13.0 to ensure your project management documents are always current and well-formatted. This upgrade allows you to create reports for your work packages featuring a clean and thoughtfully designed layout. Each report will include all filtered work packages, displaying a header table with attributes and detailed descriptions. The reports will also feature a cover page, a linked table of contents, and hyperlinks to the work packages in OpenProject. See our user guide for more information on PDF export of work plans.

Subscribe to calendars
Since OpenProject 13.0, it is possible to sync your work packages with various external calendar clients that support the iCalendar format – such as Open-Xchange, Mozilla Thunderbird, Google Calendar, and Apple Calendar. This feature allows you to monitor the scheduling and essential details of work packages across your projects from any device, including your phone, without the need to log into OpenProject. See our user guide for more information on calendar subscriptions.

Global modules on new index pages
Another great change that has been introduced with OpenProject 13.0 is easy access to all global modules for your projects. This centralizes all your overarching project information in one place. From these global pages, you can directly create new elements and assign them to a project. See our user guide for more information on global modules.

OpenProject 13.1

Dynamic meetings
With the recent release of OpenProject 13.1, users can choose between classic and new dynamic meetings. In the long term, only the dynamic meetings will remain. The dynamic meetings feature allows for a more collaborative approach to preparing meetings: You can now add work packages directly as agenda items in a meeting or create new agenda items. Additionally, relevant meetings will be shown in a new tab within the corresponding work package.

Sharing work packages outside your project
As part of OpenProject’s Enterprise edition, users can now share work packages with users or groups who are not part of a project. This feature simplifies the process of informing stakeholders without requiring them to have access to the entire project or necessitating the duplication of work packages.

2023 features for the Community edition

While developing new features, some may not be immediately available for the Community edition. We strive to maintain a balance between offering new features in the Community edition and those exclusive to our Enterprise version. We ensure that features are regularly added to the Community edition, and released two features for Community this year:

Full text attachment search
In april 2023, full text attachment search was released into Community edition. This feature allows users to search work package tables not only for the content of work packages, but also for attachment content and file name. Read more in our user guide.

Multi-select custom fields
Since OpenProject 13.0, users of the Community version are able to configure multi-select fields for work packages or projects and add those to their work packages forms. Learn more about using multi-select custom fields with OpenProject.

File Storages integration updates 2023

This year, our partnership with Nextcloud has deepened, significantly improving file management within OpenProject. Both OpenProject and Nextcloud share a commitment to data sovereignty and open source, making this collaboration a secure and efficient solution for project and file management.

Direct upload and linking of files to Nextcloud
Since the launch of OpenProject 12.5 this march, you can now upload new files and directly link them from an OpenProject work package to your Nextcloud storage. This tight integration of work packages with project-specific files merges the benefits of both open source systems. This allows for a secure setup, keeping data away from external SaaS providers.

Link an existing Nextcloud file or folder to an OpenProject work package
Also since OpenProject 12.5, you can directly link a project-related file or folder from Nextcloud to an OpenProject work package from within the work package itself in OpenProject.

OpenProject integration app for Nextcloud – from version 2.2.1 to 2.4.6
To enable users to work as efficiently as possible with OpenProject and Nextcloud, there is also an OpenProject integration for Nextcloud in addition to the Nextcloud integration for OpenProject. This allows you to link files to an OpenProject work package directly from Nextcloud, for example. In 2023, our developers have continuously worked on this integration. Read more about the OpenProject integration app for Nextcloud.

Project folders for Nextcloud integration
OpenProject 13.0 introduced a streamlined approach to managing project files and permissions, ensuring a more organized setup. The new feature of Project folders in Nextcloud creates automatically managed folders, named after your OpenProject projects, and granting access to all members of a project. Learn more about project folders within the Nextcloud integration.

OneDrive/SharePoint integration
With our latest release in 2023, Enterprise customers have the option of using OneDrive/SharePoint integration with OpenProject in addition to Nextcloud. See our user guide to learn more about this Enterprise add-on.

Accessibility, inclusion and ESG

To meet the needs of our diverse global customer base, we strive to localize OpenProject and its materials into multiple languages and make our overall offerings as accessible as possible. This means not only providing content in different languages, but also, for example, a design system that supports inclusion.

Primer Design System

In 2023, we started adopting GitHub’s design system Primer. With this decision, we aim to bring consistency, responsiveness, reusability, accessibility and proven quality to OpenProject. One of the first changes was a slightly smaller font size since OpenProject 13.0. Since then, new features, such as the new dynamic meetings module, are designed with Primer. In order to prevent a major break in the user experience and also due to the capacity of our team, we will only gradually change existing features to Primer.

User guides and Website in Spanish and French

In February, we released a French translation of our user guide, followed by a Spanish version in July. We also translated our website, so that our main sources of information about OpenProject are now available in English, German, French and Spanish.

Fair language (German)

Using language that is free from bias and stereotypes is crucial for fostering a society that is fair and inclusive, ensuring everyone feels valued and respected. This is particularly difficult in German as it is a gendered language. So we decided to revise our German content and opted for gender-neutral wording, where possible, and include the female version of the word as well as a colon to include all other genders. Read more about this project that was part of our passion time in June 2023.

Glossary

Another passion project of ours was the creation of an OpenProject glossary. We know that the OpenProject software comes with a bunch of technical terms and even if you are fluent in project management, each software has slightly different understandings of terms.

ESG

ESG stands for environmental, social and corporate governance responsibility. We at OpenProject feel the need to protect our planet, as we have just the one. Read on our website, how we strive to #CutTheBullshit and take accountability for our actions.

openDesk – the Sovereign Workplace

We already reported on the “Sovereign Administrative Workplace” last year. The name of this offering has now been finalized: “openDesk - the Sovereign Workplace”. But in addition to the name change, there have of course been a number of other developments in this great project.

Never heard of openDesk? openDesk is an assembly of Open Source software modules, designed to meet the everyday needs of the public sector. It was initiated by the German Federal Ministry of the Interior and Home Affairs (BMI) and is led by the newly established Center for Digital Sovereignty, ZenDiS. The goal of openDesk is to lessen Germany’s reliance on proprietary software providers and to promote transparency and interoperability.

In order for OpenProject to be used in the best possible way for openDesk, some adjustments and new functions are required. In 2023, for example, the following improvements have been developed for OpenProject as part of openDesk:

Smart Country Convention (SCCON)

In November 2023, we exhibited at the Smart Country Convention (SCCON), together with our colleagues and friends from openDesk: Collabora Online, Element, Nextcloud, Nordeck IT + Consulting, Open-Xchange, and Univention.

Ongoing collaboration with our open source partners

To be continued: The openDesk project will go on in 2024. There will be regular meetings between the manufacturers - both at the development level and in the areas of marketing and communication, for example. Open source should stick together. Close cooperation is also planned for 2024, especially with our friends at Nextcloud.

Team OpenProject

OpenProject consists of many employees who put their heart and soul into the software and enable collaboration with open source tools for customers all over the world. In addition to updates to the software, we are therefore also interested in this annual review: What were the highlights for Team OpenProject 2023?

Talks at FOSDEM 2023 and Nextcloud Enterprise Day 2023

Two of our team members attended FOSDEM in February 2023 and spoke about the development of the OpenProject Nextcloud integration and practical UX at OpenProject.

In June, OpenProject Co-Founder and Head of Marketing Birthe Lindenthal attended Nextcloud Enterprise Day to speak about the open source alliance between OpenProject and Nextcloud as a strong combination for project management. Listen to her talk here:

Passion time in June 2023

While working remote most the time, we try to meet at least once a year in a large group and, if possible, several times in smaller local groups. Passion time is when we all spend two weeks on topics that are close to our hearts. One of these weeks took part in Switzerland this year, giving us the possibility to not ony work on great projects like the time tracking button or adding an emoji picker to the text editor, but also meeting up and simply having a good time together.

To get a glimpse of OpenProject’s passion time 2023, watch this video:

Ten new team members

The best part of growth are the new team members who strengthen and professionalize the team. In 2023, our team has grown again – a warm welcome to every new team member!

Pavel, Software Engineer
Jonas Jabari, external Senior Software Engineer
Aaron, Software Engineer
Kabiru, Software Engineer
Klaus, Senior Software Engineer
Corinna, International Marketing Manager
Alexander, Customer Service & Community Representative
Marcello, Senior Software Engineer
Tizian, Support Specialist
Dominic, Software Engineer

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.

Roadmap for 2024

Every comprehensive review of the year ends with a brief look ahead to the coming year: What is planned for OpenProject 2024?

There will be a major change to our Gantt charts: In a future release, users will be able to access the Gantt chart directly from the sidebar.

Another feature we are all looking forward to is a progress reporting for work package hierarchies. OpenProject contains extensive project controlling functions, which are particularly useful for hybrid models. Our goal for 2024 is to enable certain values of a work breakdown structure to be entered or calculated both top-down and bottom-up via a hierarchy.

Of course, there is much more on our roadmap and in our minds, so stay tuned for upcoming news!

We are very happy about OpenProject’s development in 2023 and proud to have such a great team that is supported by a great Community. To open source and open minds and a happy new year 2024! 💙