Openproject — openproject

Open an existing project

In order to open an existing project, click the Select a project button in the upper left corner of the header and select the project you want to open.

You can also start typing in a project name to filter by the project’s title.

Projects and subprojects are displayed according to their hierarchy in the drop-down menu.

Subproject is defined as a child project of another project. Subprojects can be used to display a hierarchy of projects. Several filter options (e.g. in work package list and timeline) can be applied only to the current project and its subprojects.

Also, you will see your newest projects on the application landing page in the Projects section. Here you can simply click on one of the newest visible projects to open it.

FAQ regarding features

Please find information on the features of OpenProject here and a comparison between Enterprise on-premises, Enterprise cloud and Community Edition . The community platform to see and issue feature ideas can be found here.

Is it possible to use multiple languages in OpenProject?

Yes, it is possible to use OpenProject in multiple languages. We support English, German, French and a number of additional languages. Each user can select their own preferred language by signing into OpenProject, clicking on the user avatar on the upper right side and selecting “My account” from the dropdown menu. You can then select “Settings” from the side menu on the left side and .

Is there an OpenProject app?

There is no native iOS or Android app for OpenProject, but OpenProject is responsive — so it displays well on smaller screens.

Can I use OpenProject offline?

No, it’s not possible to use OpenProject without Internet access (Enterprise cloud) or access to the server it is installed on (on-premises installations).

Does OpenProject have guest accounts?

Currently, all users working in the OpenProject Enterprise editions need a license in order to access OpenProject. Regarding payments we only count the active (not blocked) users. If users only require temporary access, you can those users afterwards to free up additional seats.

Apart from that, you can use placeholder users to set up your project without using license seats.

Can I get a notification when a deadline approaches?

Not at the moment. This is a well-known feature requirement and we are currently working on the specification for this with our dev team. It’s already on our roadmap and it will be developed in one of the upcoming releases.

Does OpenProject offer resource management?

You can set up budgets, set an Estimated time for a work package and use the to find out how many work packages are assigned to a person, yet. Additional resource management features will be added within the next years. You can find the road-map for future releases here.

Is there an organizational chart in OpenProject?

There’s no such feature. However, you can use the wiki to add information regarding your departments and employees. Furthermore, you can upload existing org charts as image or e.g. PDF to the wiki or the documents module.

In many companies it makes sense to structure your project tree according to your departments (i.e. one parent project for each department with projects for each topic or client underneath).

What is new in OpenProject 11.0?

Top-down project scheduling with new manual planning mode

Top-down scheduling enables the project team to define all tasks involved in a project, starting with a fixed start and finish date, and breaking it down into smaller work packages. The new manual scheduling mode in OpenProject allows to set a start and finish date of the parent without being affected by the start and finish dates of its children. You can now plan a project top-down without knowing all tasks at the start of the project.

Moving a child element in the manual scheduling mode will not move the dates of the parent element. It will now indicate the scheduling differences with a blue or red bracket underneath (e.g. when a child is shorter or longer than the parent phase). Also, we have added a grey background on hover to indicate the parent-child-relationships.

Now, in OpenProject you can rely on both, top-down and bottom-up planning or even a combination of both. The approach you choose depends on your specific planning goal.

Versatile agile boards give you more options (premium feature)

The new board types in OpenProject allow you even more flexible agile project management. Now, you can create a work breakdown structure for your project by adding parent-child-elements as a board. Select the parent work packages from the list and create a board with all corresponding children work packages.

WBS (work-breakdown-structure) boards

Agile boards for subprojects

Also, project hierarchies can now be displayed in the boards, e.g. to distribute tasks between subprojects. Subprojects can be selected as lists.

New boards creation screen to select different board types

Furthermore, we have implemented more improvements to the agile boards, such as a better board creation modal. It is now much easier to choose a new board from the available options.

Cards with details view in boards

To get more information about the cards in a board and to enable quick and easy updates of all work package attributes incl. custom fields, we have enabled a split-screen view also for the boards view. The new split screen view can be enabled via the info icon on the cards.

Project templates for easy project creation

The new project templates allow you to create projects based on predefined templates. When setting up a project you can define whether this project should be used as a project template. You will then have the possibility to select a predefined project template when creating a new project which already includes all configurations, e.g. assignee, project plan, work breakdown structure.

Improved project portfolio management

The configuration of the “view all projects” page now enables better project portfolio management. You can configure the “view all projects” list to show relevant project information for all projects, e.g. add custom fields for projects and remove columns which are not needed. With the link to the Gantt charts view you can directly open a global work packages view for all projects, configured to your needs, e.g. to show all milestones across all projects.

Harmonization of the time and costs modules

Tracking spent time and costs is now much easier with the improved and harmonized modules for time and cost reporting. The modules Time tracking and Cost reporting have been combined. Whenever you want to track time and/or costs in a project, the new module Time and costs needs to be activated in the project settings. It automatically adds the time tracking and cost reporting functionality to the project. The Budgets module will remain unchanged and additionally enables project budgets to be tracked.

Improvements of the WYSIWYG editor

We have again added many improvements to the WYSIWYG editor, i.e. for wiki pages or the work packages description. For example, you can now adjust the image size in the editor.

Additionally, it is now possible to add macros to insert project or work packages attributes to the wiki or work package description.

Attribute help texts for projects (premium feature)

We have now also expanded the attribute help texts for projects. You can define help text for all project attributes, such as status or accountable or any custom field for projects. A small question mark icon will appear behind the attribute in order to make the entry of this information easier and eliminate errors.

Copy boards and project dashboards

Boards and project dashboards can now also be copied when copying a project. This enables you to set up a default project and copy it to set up a new project.

How to … in OpenProject?

Most of this kind of questions will be answered in the respective sections for each topic (see links below). However, there may be some FAQ that do not really fit elsewhere:

I cannot log in. Resetting my password seems to have no effect. What do I do?

Ask your system admin to .

If you are the system administrator of an on-premises installation (Enterprise on-premises or Community Edition) please have a look at .

How can I reverse changes?

This is not possible per se, there’s no Ctrl+Z option or anything similar.

Please use these resources to find out about the latest changes and re-do them manually: The , the or the Activities module.

How can I increase or decrease the number of users in OpenProject?

You can invite new users in the system administration as long as you have enough licenses.

If you are using the Enterprise cloud, you can easily upgrade or downgrade the number of users by navigating to Administration -> Billing -> Manage subscription and choosing the new amount of users which you need in your system. Find out more here.

How can I add a RACI matrix in OpenProject?

You can add project custom fields of the type “user” to your projects and track the respective persons there.

On a work package level you could use “Assignee” for “Responsible”, “Accountable” for “Accountable” and add custom fields for “Consulted” and “Informed”. For the latter one you could also just set the person as watcher instead.

How can I create a PDF file with an individual and consolidated projects report?

To create and print/export reports you can…

• use the : Filter for e.g. phases and milestones (which would make sense to use in your projects in this case). Then use the . This will give you an overview over all projects’ work packages (or all projects’ milestones and phases, respectively).
• use the Wiki module to document your project reports. The Wiki pages is optimized for being printed using your browser’s print feature. You could even insert a work packages list there. If you want to use the Wiki we suggest setting it up in a (global) parent project.

The projects overview is not optimized for export via PDF, yet. Nevertheless, you can try to use your browser’s print feature.

How can I receive the OpenProject newsletter?

Please go to https://www.openproject.org/newsletter/ and submit your data to receive our newsletter. Another option would be to agree to receive the newsletter when creating your account.

Help and feedback

If you did not find what you were looking for

Search in docs

If you need help from the community or want to support others

Post on OpenProject forum

If you are eligible for professional support and have more questions

Request support

If you find an easily fixable error or need for improvement in the documentation

Edit this page

If you would like to suggest bigger updates or improvements to this documentation

Create an issue

If you want to contribute to translate this documentation to another language

Translate on crowdin

If there’s something you don’t like or understand about this feature

Create an issue

If you want to propose a new feature that OpenProject does not offer yet

Submit feature proposal

To further help OpenProject to shape and test new features

Join beta testing

To view OpenProject premium features and pricing

View pricing page

If you want to try all premium features in the OpenProject Cloud Edition 14 days for free

Free trial OpenProject Cloud Edition

If you want to try all premium features in your on premise Community installation 14 days for free

Free trial OpenProject Enterprise Edition (on premise)

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) Installation

SLES 12

Add the OpenProject package source:

Download the OpenProject package:

Then finish the installation by reading the section.

Note: On SLES12 full-text extraction for attachments by default.

Full-text extraction not supported

For some distributions we do not provide the required dependencies for full-text extraction of attachments. If you need this feature, please install the required dependencies () manually. For more information, please see the plaintext gem. Once installed, check to see if OpenProject is able to pick up these dependencies.

After you have successfully installed the OpenProject package, you can now perform the initial configuration of OpenProject, using the wizard that ships with the OpenProject package.

Step 5: Outgoing email configuration

The wizard supports the following options:

Sendmail (default)

Uses a local sendmail installation or sets up a local-only postfix MTA in case you do not have sendmail.

Easiest setup as it does not require an SMTP configuration, but your Mails may not be delivered consistently depending on your mail accounts or firewall setup.

SMTP (recommended for production systems)

Allows you to connect to a SMTP host through authentication types , , or . Use this if you have a dedicated mail account to use for delivering OpenProject mail, or when sendmail does not work due to your local firewall / mail relay setup.

Project dashboard

In order to manage your projects successfully, you should make sure to be up to date about the status at all times. This allows you to keep the project on track and in case to readjust quickly. OpenProject’s project overview is a single dashboard page with important project information. You can display relevant information for your team, such as members, news, project description, work package reports, or a project status. You can add project information as widgets to the dashboard and not only order but also re-size the widgets according to your needs. Furthermore, you can add text widgets, custom texts, links and other information to your overview page.

We included quite a few links to our documentation in this article which also entails videos to make to easier for you to discover how to use OpenProject. If you would like to discover more videos, please check out the OpenProject YouTube channel.

Migration

How can I migrate from Bitnami to OpenProject?

To migrate from Bitnami to Enterprise cloud please provide these:

• data as database dump (.sql file)
• attachment folder

You can use the first two steps of . Please contact us to discuss your migration.

To migrate from Bitnami to Enterprise on premises please use . We offer (paid) installation support to help you migrate to OpenProject (for the Enterprise on-premises edition). Please contact us to request it.

How can I migrate from Jira/Confluence to OpenProject?

At the moment there are these ways to migrate:

• our API
• our Excel sync
• Using a Markdown export app you can export pages from Confluence and paste them (via copy & paste) into OpenProject in e.g. the wiki. This should preserve at least most of the layout. Attachments would then have to be added manually.

For more information please contact us.

How can I migrate from Community Edition or Enterprise on-premises to Enterprise cloud?

We will need a database dump from you which we will upload to your new Enterprise cloud. Please contact us to plan the migration and get more instructions.

How can I migrate from Enterprise cloud to Enterprise on-premises?

We will provide a database dump which you can upload into your Enterprise on-premises edition. This way you can keep all your data.

How can I migrate from Community Edition to Enterprise on-premises?

If you you will receive an Enterprise token. Use it to activate the Enterprise premium features. For detailed activation instructions please refer to the Enterprise activation guide. You can keep your data that you created in the Community Edition.

How can I migrate from Enterprise on-premises to Community Edition?

If you cancel your subscription for Enterprise on-premises you will be downgraded to Community Edition automatically as soon as the subscription period ends. You can keep all your data but won’t be able to use the and won’t be eligible for support any more.

Help and feedback

If you did not find what you were looking for

Search in docs

If you need help from the community or want to support others

Post on OpenProject forum

If you are eligible for professional support and have more questions

Request support

If you find an easily fixable error or need for improvement in the documentation

Edit this page

If you would like to suggest bigger updates or improvements to this documentation

Create an issue

If you want to contribute to translate this documentation to another language

Translate on crowdin

If there’s something you don’t like or understand about this feature

Create an issue

If you want to propose a new feature that OpenProject does not offer yet

Submit feature proposal

To further help OpenProject to shape and test new features

Join beta testing

To view OpenProject premium features and pricing

View pricing page

If you want to try all premium features in the OpenProject Cloud Edition 14 days for free

Free trial OpenProject Cloud Edition

If you want to try all premium features in your on premise Community installation 14 days for free

Free trial OpenProject Enterprise Edition (on premise)

Help and feedback

If you did not find what you were looking for

Search in docs

If you need help from the community or want to support others

Post on OpenProject forum

If you are eligible for professional support and have more questions

Request support

If you find an easily fixable error or need for improvement in the documentation

Edit this page

If you would like to suggest bigger updates or improvements to this documentation

Create an issue

If you want to contribute to translate this documentation to another language

Translate on crowdin

If there’s something you don’t like or understand about this feature

Create an issue

If you want to propose a new feature that OpenProject does not offer yet

Submit feature proposal

To further help OpenProject to shape and test new features

Join beta testing

To view OpenProject premium features and pricing

View pricing page

If you want to try all premium features in the OpenProject Cloud Edition 14 days for free

Free trial OpenProject Cloud Edition

If you want to try all premium features in your on premise Community installation 14 days for free

Free trial OpenProject Enterprise Edition (on premise)

Step 3: Apache2 web server

OpenProject comes with an internal ruby application server, but this server only listens on a local interface. To receive connections from the outside world, it needs a web server that will act as a proxy to forward incoming connections to the OpenProject application server.

This wizard step allows you to auto-install an Apache2 web server to function as that proxy.

The available options are:

Install Apache2 web server (default)

We recommend that you let OpenProject install and configure the outer web server, in which case we will install an Apache2 web server with a VirtualHost listening to the domain name you specify, optionally providing SSL/TLS termination.

In case you select to auto-install Apache2, multiple dialogs will request the parameters for setting it up:

Domain name

Server path prefix

If you wish to install OpenProject under a server path prefix, such as , please specify that prefix here with a leading slash. For example: . If OpenProject should respond to as specified in the previous dialog, simply leave this dialog empty and confirm by pressing .

SSL/TLS configuration

OpenProject can configure Apache to support HTTPS (SSL/TLS). If you have SSL certificates and want to use SSL/TLS (recommended), select Yes.

In that case, you will be shown three additional dialogs to enter the certificate details:

1. The absolute SSL certificate path
2. The absolute SSL private key path
3. The path to the Certificate Authority bundle for the certificate (optional, leave empty unless needed)

External SSL/TLS termination

If you terminate SSL externally before the request hits the OpenProject server, you need to follow the following instructions to avoid errors in routing. If you want to use SSL on the server running OpenProject, skip this section.

If you have a separate server that is terminating SSL and only forwarding/proxying to the OpenProject server, you must select “No” in this dialog. However, there are some parameters you need to put into your outer configuration.

• If you’re proxying to the openproject server, you need to forward the HOST header to the internal server. This ensures that the host name of the outer request gets forwarded to the internal server. Otherwise you might see redirects in your browser to the internal host that OpenProject is running on.
  • In Apache2, set the directive
  • In NginX, use the following value:
• If you’re terminating SSL on the outer server, you need to set the header to let OpenProject know that the request is HTTPS, even though its been terminated earlier in the request on the outer server.
  • In Apache2, use
  • In Nginx, use
• Finally, to let OpenProject know that it should create links with ‘https’ when no request is available (for example, when sending emails), you need to set the following setting: followed by an . This ensures that OpenProject responds correctly with secure cookies even though it was not configured for https in the server configuration.

Skip (not recommended)

The installer will not set up an external web server for accessing. You will need to either install and set up a web server such as Apache2 or Nginx to function as the web server forwarding to our internal server listening at by proxying.

Only choose this option if you have a local Apache2 installed that the OpenProject package may not control, or need to use a different web server such as Nginx. Please note that not all functionality (especially regarding Repositories) are supported on Nginx.

When installing with an existing Apache2, you can take a look at the source of our installation templates for guidance on how to set up the integration.

Here’s an exemplary configuration that might work for you.

For a minimal nginx config, please see this gist as as starting point.

Please note: If you reconfigure the OpenProject application and switch to , you might run into errors with the Apache configuration file, as that will not be automatically remove. Please double-check you removed references to the if you do reconfigure.

How to … in OpenProject?

Most of this kind of questions will be answered in the respective sections for each topic (see links below). However, there may be some FAQ that do not really fit elsewhere:

I cannot log in. Resetting my password seems to have no effect. What do I do?

Ask your system admin to .

If you are the system administrator of an on-premises installation (Enterprise on-premises or Community Edition) please have a look at .

How can I reverse changes?

This is not possible per se, there’s no Ctrl+Z option or anything similar.

Please use these resources to find out about the latest changes and re-do them manually: The , the or the Activities module.

How can I increase or decrease the number of users in OpenProject?

You can invite new users in the system administration as long as you have enough licenses.

If you are using the Enterprise cloud, you can easily upgrade or downgrade the number of users by navigating to Administration -> Billing -> Manage subscription and choosing the new amount of users which you need in your system. Find out more here.

How can I add a RACI matrix in OpenProject?

You can add project custom fields of the type “user” to your projects and track the respective persons there.

On a work package level you could use “Assignee” for “Responsible”, “Accountable” for “Accountable” and add custom fields for “Consulted” and “Informed”. For the latter one you could also just set the person as watcher instead.

How can I create a PDF file with an individual and consolidated projects report?

To create and print/export reports you can…

• use the : Filter for e.g. phases and milestones (which would make sense to use in your projects in this case). Then use the . This will give you an overview over all projects’ work packages (or all projects’ milestones and phases, respectively).
• use the Wiki module to document your project reports. The Wiki pages is optimized for being printed using your browser’s print feature. You could even insert a work packages list there. If you want to use the Wiki we suggest setting it up in a (global) parent project.

The projects overview is not optimized for export via PDF, yet. Nevertheless, you can try to use your browser’s print feature.

How can I receive the OpenProject newsletter?

Please go to https://www.openproject.org/newsletter/ and submit your data to receive our newsletter. Another option would be to agree to receive the newsletter when creating your account.

Docker-based installation

If you are using docker-compose, then the data volumes are managed by Docker and you should have a look at the official Docker documentation for instructions on how to backup.

If you are using the all-in-one container, then you can simply backup any local volumes that you chose to bind-mount with the option when launching the container. For instance if you launched the container with:

Then you would need to backup the folder (for instance to S3 or FTP server).

Dumping the database

When using docker-compose you can simply dump the database from the database container.

This assumes that the database container is called . Find out the actual name on your host using .

All-in-one container

If you need a regular dump of the database you can get one using like this:

Where is the name of your OpenProject container. If you don’t know it you can find it using .

Other

How can I contribute to OpenProject?

We welcome everybody willing to help make OpenProject better. There are a lot of possibilities for helping, be it improving the translations via crowdin, answering questions in the forums or by fixing bugs and implementing features.

If you want to code, a good starting point would be to make yourself familiar with the basic approaches for developing in OpenProject and opening a pull request on GitHub referencing an existing bug report or feature request. Find our GitHub page here.

If in doubt on how you should start, you can also just contact us.

How can I receive support?

If you use the Community Edition please feel free to use our forums for exchange with other users.

To learn more about OpenProject and how its features work please have a look at .

Do you support Univention users?

If you’re an Enterprise on-premises user you’re eligible for Professional Support. However, we can’t support you in all Univention-related topics (e.g. server not reachable, authentication setup, …).

Is there a limitation of participants for the trainings?

No, you can join with as many people from your organization as you like. However, or most we recommend not more than 20-25 people so there’s enough opportunity for everyone to ask questions. This answer only refers to e.g. Getting Started training and custom trainings, not to the OpenProject certification!

How long is the OpenProject certification valid?

It does not expire. However, the certification training always covers the current version of the software at the time.

Create a new project

To create a new project, click the green button + Project directly on the system’s home screen in the Project section.

Alternatively, you can use the green + button in the header menu to create a new project.

• You can either create a completely new project, create a subproject of an existing project or create a (sub)project from a template. For the latter option, choose a using the drop-down menu.
• Enter a name for your project and click the blue Create button.
• The Advanced Settings allow for further configuration, e.g. description, URL, etc.

By default, creating a new project will set you as project admin, regardless of whether you copied a project, used a template or created a project from scratch. Now, you can get started working on your project.

To configure further project information, see the documentation for project settings.

View all projects

To view all your projects in which you are a member, click on the View all projects link in the Select a project drop-down menu.

You will see a list with all your projects and their details.

Help and feedback

If you did not find what you were looking for

Search in docs

If you need help from the community or want to support others

Post on OpenProject forum

If you are eligible for professional support and have more questions

Request support

If you find an easily fixable error or need for improvement in the documentation

Edit this page

If you would like to suggest bigger updates or improvements to this documentation

Create an issue

If you want to contribute to translate this documentation to another language

Translate on crowdin

If there’s something you don’t like or understand about this feature

Create an issue

If you want to propose a new feature that OpenProject does not offer yet

Submit feature proposal

To further help OpenProject to shape and test new features

Join beta testing

To view OpenProject premium features and pricing

View pricing page

If you want to try all premium features in the OpenProject Cloud Edition 14 days for free

Free trial OpenProject Cloud Edition

If you want to try all premium features in your on premise Community installation 14 days for free

Free trial OpenProject Enterprise Edition (on premise)