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OpenProject 15.5: Filter for descendants of work packages

Publicado por Corinna Günther 16. Abril 2025 Tiempo estimado de lectura: 7 minutos

We are happy to announce the release of OpenProject 15.5. Among other changes, users now can filter for descendants of work packages, which includes children, grandchildren, and deeper levels in the hierarchy. This makes it easier to focus on specific parts of a project hierarchy.

In this blog article, we will take a closer look at these feature updates:

And there are more great updates in this version again. For more details on other changes, features and bug fixes in 15.5, please check out our release notes.

Consejo
The next version is already on the horizon: In May 2025, we plan to release OpenProject 16.0 with major feature changes. One change will be the ‘sunsetting’ of classic meetings, meaning users will only be able to create one-time and recurring meetings then. With the release of 15.5, you already see a hint in the application that classic meetings are unsupported. We recommend switching to the newer meeting types now to benefit from recent improvements and to ensure a smooth transition. Read this article to learn more: Classic meetings will be replaced: What changes with OpenProject 16.0

Filter for descendants of work packages

OpenProject 15.5 introduces a helpful new filter to better navigate complex project structures. The Descendants of filter allows you to display all related work packages beneath a selected parent — including its children, grandchildren, and deeper levels.

For example, if you apply the filter “Descendants of” is (OR) “Open Source Conference”, the view will include:

Two direct children: Create sponsorship brochure and hand-outs and Set date and location of conference
Two children of the brochure task — in other words, grandchildren of the main phase: Design brochure and Write brochure text
One grandchild under the location task: Contact sponsoring partners

This filter is available wherever filters are supported, such as work package tables or agile boards. Until now, it was only possible to filter for parent work packages — this new option lets you see the full hierarchy below a selected item, making it easier to focus on a specific part of your project and understand its structure at a glance.

Work package table filtered for descendants of a phase

Column for children in work package tables (Enterprise add-on)

OpenProject 15.5 adds a new Children column to work package tables — giving you a faster and more structured way to view hierarchical relationships without needing to apply filters or switch views.

This column shows a clickable dropdown icon alongside the number of child work packages linked to each parent. With one click, you can expand the parent directly in the table to get an immediate overview of its structure. Each child is clearly marked with a Child label, helping you stay oriented even in complex project hierarchies.

This feature is especially useful when working with large datasets or focused views, where quickly understanding relationships between work packages is key.

For example, in a project phase like Open Source Conference, the Children column shows how many related work packages are connected to that phase — helping teams assess scope and progress without leaving the table view.

Work package table with a highlighted ‘Children’ column - the number of children being displayed next to each parent, along with a dropdown-symbol

Nota
All relationship columns, including the new Children column, are part of the Enterprise add-ons.

% Complete included in work package table sums

Imagine you’re part of an NGO marketing team planning newsletters, blog articles, and videos for the upcoming year. Each campaign includes several tasks — like writing a blog post titled Behind the scenes: Organizing a field mission or producing the video Meet our volunteers. Both are in progress and marked as 40% complete.

With OpenProject 15.5, it’s now easier to get an overview of your content pipeline: the % Complete value is included in the sum row of work package tables. Alongside Work and Remaining work, this provides a quick snapshot of overall progress — in this case, 42 hours of work planned, 25.2 hours remaining, and an overall completion rate of 40%.

All three values are calculated based on the selected progress tracking mode, giving you accurate insights tailored to your team’s workflow — whether you’re tracking effort manually or automatically.

Work package table showing % Complete, Work and Remaining work – with highlighted sums

Advanced accessibility

Accessibility is not just a feature — it’s a fundamental part of building inclusive software. With version 15.5, we’ve taken another step forward in making OpenProject more accessible, especially for users who rely on screen readers or keyboard navigation.

The date picker now provides clearer, more meaningful feedback during manual input, ensuring that everyone can interact with project timelines confidently and independently. This means that screen readers now announce when switching between manual and automatic scheduling modes. Changes to one field, such as the Start date or Duration, are immediately announced when they affect related fields. The “Today” shortcuts come with ARIA labels that give users helpful context — for example, “Select today as start date.”

These improvements are part of our ongoing ARIA implementation strategy to ensure that OpenProject is usable by as many people as possible. Further accessibility enhancements are planned for upcoming versions.

OpenProject 15.5: Migration, installation, updates and support

Follow the upgrade guide for the packaged installation or Docker installation to update your OpenProject installation to OpenProject 15.5. We update your hosted OpenProject environments (Enterprise cloud) today, April 16, 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 15.5 right away, create a 14 days free trial instance for our OpenProject Enterprise cloud.
Prefer to run OpenProject 15.5 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.

Créditos

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 Abhiyan Paudyal, Andreas H., Paul Kernstock, Patrick Stapf, and 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 particularly thank the following users:

Yuliia Pavliuk, for a great number of translations into Ukrainian.
Adam Siemienski, for a great number of translations into Polish.
NCAA, for a great number of translations into Danish.
greench, for a great number of translations into Turkish.

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. 💙