OpenProject 8.0: the new release is packed with many powerful collaboration features

We are proud to announce the release of OpenProject 8.0. The new OpenProject version contains a completely new text editor, a fresh design, a new navigation, and more powerful collaboration features.

Users of the Enterprise cloud and Enterprise on-premises edition benefit from intelligent workflows through custom actions, full text search for work package attachments and subelement groups for work packages.

What is new in OpenProject 8.0?

WYSIWYG text editor

A new text editor makes working with texts in OpenProject much easier. With the visual editor, you can easily format text, insert images, create tables and add macros (e.g. a table of contents). This new editor enables you to easily copy and paste content from Word documents into OpenProject or to insert screenshots and other images with copy and paste. The new text editor is available in all parts of OpenProject (e.g. wiki pages, meetings, news, and work package descriptions).

New design

OpenProject has a new logo and a new default color theme. The header menu has a different blue color, while the side menu is now displayed in a dark tone. Users of the Enterprise cloud and Enterprise on-premises edition can of course adjust the logo and color theme.

New side navigation

OpenProject 8 introduces a new side navigation for projects. For wiki pages and the work package page you can now see all the subpages and saved views in the side menu. This makes it a lot easier to navigate between different pages. Default views, such as Recently created or Assigned to me, let you have important information at your fingertips.

Embedded work package tables

Work package tables can now easily be added within a work packages description, wiki pages, meetings, and the project overview page. You can also include a Gantt chart view. When embedding a work package table you have full control over which work packages to be displayed and which columns should be shown. This functionality enables a better overview of important information at a sight, e.g. the current project status. You can also include e.g. important work packages (e.g. child elements) directly within the description of a parent work package.

Enterprise on-premises and Enterprise cloud features

The following new features are especially for our Enterprise on-premises and Enterprise cloud customers. You can get a free trial of the Enterprise cloud here.

Conditional formatting for work package table

Staying on top of all activities to see where immediate action is required is essential in project management. With OpenProject 8.0 you can highlight your work package tables in different colors depending on the attributes, e.g. status, priority, finish date. Therefore, you see at one sight where your action is required, e.g. when a task is overdue or it is set to high priority. By default, overdue tasks are displayed in red; tasks that are due at the same day are displayed in orange. The due date is also highlighted in the Gantt chart. Additionally, status and priority have a circle next to the written status for highlighting. All colors can be customized.

Alternatively, the entire work package rows can be highlighted based on either the work package status or priority.

Full text search for work package attachments

Want to quickly find work package attachments based on their content? This is possible now thanks to the full text search. You can either search by the content of an attachment or by its file name. Simply go to the work package page and apply the attachment filters to see the work packages with those attachments.

Intelligent workflows with custom actions

Intelligent workflows support you to easily update several work package attributes at once with a single click on a button. When a user clicks the button, the actions are triggered and e.g. the status, assignee and progress are updated at once.

You can configure this behavior with the help of custom actions. Create a custom action button and display it on a work package. Custom actions allow you to work very efficiently and workflow-driven.

Easily create and display child elements within work package forms

With OpenProject 8 you can directly create and display certain sub work packages, e.g. child elements, on a work package page. Only interested in seeing subelements which are being worked on? No problem - simply adjust the filter for those subelement groups. This way, you can display all the important information belonging to one work package in one place, e.g. all work packages required to finish a certain task.

Performance improvements

The overall performance in OpenProject has been improved - especially for work packages.

Installation

To use OpenProject 8.0 online, create an instance on OpenProject.org.

Want to install OpenProject 8.0 to use it in your own infrastructure?
Here you can find the Installation guidelines for OpenProject.

Migrating to OpenProject 8.0

Follow the migration guide for the packaged installation or the migration guide for the manual installation to update your OpenProject installation to OpenProject 8.0.

We update hosted OpenProject environments (Enterprise cloud) automatically.

Support

You will find useful information in the OpenProject FAQ or you can post your questions in the Forum.

Release Notes

Please refer to the OpenProject 8.0 Release Notes for an overview of the new and improved features, as well as a list of fixed bugs.

Credits

Special thanks go to all OpenProject contributors without whom this release would not have been possible:

• Deutsche Telekom, Deutsche Bahn and Windmöller & Hölscher for sponsoring new features.
• All the developers, designers, project managers who have contributed to OpenProject.
• All the dedicated users who have reported bugs and supported the community by asking and answering questions in the forum.
• All the dedicated users who provided translations on CrowdIn.
• The members of the OpenProject Foundation for continuously supporting OpenProject.

What’s next?

We are continuously developing new features and improvements for OpenProject.
For information regarding new releases, please have a look at the release plan.

To stay up to date with the recent development, feel free to follow OpenProject on Twitter and like OpenProject on Facebook and Google+.