OpenProject 15.3: Project management software brings recurring meetings

Version 15.3 of the open-source project management tool OpenProject has been released. The update includes a revised management of meetings, which allows the creation of recurring appointments. There are also new features for handling work packages and recording working hours. At the same time, support for CentOS 8 ends with the new version.

OpenProject revises meetings

Users can create recurring meetings in OpenProject 15.3. In addition to predefined intervals, for example for weekly or monthly conferences, user-defined time intervals can also be defined. Furthermore, users can create their own templates for conference series, but also edit individual dates of such series without the changes affecting the upcoming meetings. The respective appointments can be exported as an ICS file and used in external calendars such as Google Calendar or Outlook. In addition, all participants in recurring conferences receive an invitation by email.

The project management software also includes classic and one-off meetings. Classic meetings have their agendas and minutes, while one-off meetings have a dynamic list of agenda items that can be linked to work packages if required. In future versions of OpenProject, classic meetings will give way to other conference functions.

OpenProject shows dependencies of work packages

When managing work packages, OpenProject 15.3 returns to an earlier menu navigation. Users can once again create subordinate work packages via the “Relationships” tab and do not have to switch views first. In addition, the program now displays the dependencies between work packages. To this end, it displays start and end dates as well as delay times for the corresponding relationships, even if a user does not have access rights to an affected work package. However, it is not possible to edit the package.

Subordinate work packages can now also be included in cost reports. The new OpenProject version includes a filter that allows users to select subordinate work packages. Previously, this required manual management of the package hierarchy. Furthermore, the project management application automatically calculates the total when exporting working time overviews to PDF. When exporting data for individual employees, the tool adds a totals line at the end of the time overview. If the data includes several employees, the program generates a separate overview page.

In total, OpenProject 15.3 comes with around 40 feature updates and almost 70 bug fixes, the details of which are listed in the release notes. The tool currently runs on Ubuntu 20.04 and 22.04, Debian 11 and 12, as well as CentOS 9 and SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15. In the last major release of OpenProject, developers revised the timeline and enabled the independent setup of a single sign-on. The open-source program is also part of the Microsoft 365 alternative openDesk, which is funded by the German government.

(sfe)