Work packages are at the heart of project planning and collaboration in OpenProject. As organizations grow and projects become more complex, clear references and seamless collaboration become increasingly important. At the same time, organizations migrating from Jira need a reliable way to preserve established references and naming conventions when moving their projects to OpenProject.
With OpenProject 17.5, organizations can now choose between numerical and project-based work package identifiers, currently available in Beta. The release also improves Jira migrations and brings further enhancements to agile planning with Backlogs.
In this article, we highlight the most important changes and what they mean for your daily work. And, as always, please see our release notes that contain all changes, features and bug fixes.
A quick article navigation:
- Your choice: project-based or numerical work package identifiers
- More flexibility and clarity in Backlogs
- Other great improvements with OpenProject 17.5
Your choice: project-based or numerical work package identifiers
If you worked with OpenProject at least once, you probably know that every work package has a unique identifier (ID). You encounter the ID when opening a work package URL, searching for a specific work package, mentioning it in documentation, or sharing it with colleagues.
Here’s an example of a numerical work package ID:
Until now, OpenProject used a single numerical sequence across the entire instance. The first work package ever created on an OpenProject instance received the identifier #1, the second #2, and so on.
While this approach works well, the identifiers themselves provide little information about where a work package belongs. Additional context can be helpful when working across multiple projects, sharing work package references, or collaborating through external tools and integrations.
With OpenProject 17.5, organizations can now choose between the traditional numerical sequence and project-based work package identifiers.
Note
Project-based work package identifiers are currently available in Beta. While the feature is already supported across important areas of OpenProject, some areas may continue to display numerical identifiers until support for project-based identifiers is fully implemented. In these cases, numerical identifiers remain fully functional and continue to resolve to the same work packages. If you notice any inconsistencies or unexpected behavior, we welcome your feedback.
Easier to recognize, reference, and share work packages
Work package identifiers are used throughout OpenProject every day. They appear in links, notifications, documents, Activity discussions, filters, integrations, and more. The larger an organization grows, the more important it becomes to quickly recognize which project a work package belongs to.
Project-based work package identifiers add project context directly to the identifier. Instead of a generic numerical identifier such as #2385, teams can use semantic identifiers such as X-01, making it easier to recognize, reference, and share work packages across projects. The project-specific prefix immediately indicates which project the work package belongs to.
Important
The choice is made once for the entire OpenProject instance. This allows organizations to establish a consistent approach to work package identifiers and references across all projects and teams. We recommend informing all stakeholders before making that change. We also advise to do this during off-peak working hours.
OpenProject validates existing project identifiers and can generate compatible identifiers where necessary. Project-based work package identifiers are especially useful for organizations managing many projects or working across multiple teams. They provide immediate project context while preserving the flexibility to continue using the traditional numerical sequence if preferred. And: They also provide a foundation for preserving existing Jira issue identifiers during migrations to OpenProject.
Naturally, introducing a new identifier format raises a few questions. We’ve listed some FAQ below. For detailed information, please see our system admin guide.
Is switching to project-based IDs optional?
Yes. Organizations can continue using the traditional numerical sequence if it better fits their existing processes and workflows.
What happens to existing links and references?
Existing numerical IDs remain valid and continue to resolve to the same work packages throughout OpenProject. Historical links, bookmarks, and references continue to work even after switching to project-based work package identifiers.
Can I switch back later?
Yes. The setting can be reverted later if needed. OpenProject also validates existing project identifiers and can generate compatible identifiers where necessary.
Why is this useful for Jira migrations?
One of the main reasons for introducing project-based work package identifiers is to support migrations from Jira. Organizations can now preserve their existing Jira issue identifiers when they migrate from Jira to OpenProject, helping teams maintain established naming conventions, references, and workflows.
Note
The Jira Migrator has also been extended to support migrating due dates, estimated hours, and remaining hours. Learn more in our Jira migration documentation.
More flexibility and clarity in Backlogs
Agile planning and execution continue to be major focus areas for OpenProject. Over the last releases, we have expanded Backlogs and sprint planning with dedicated sprint objects, improved backlog management, and more flexible planning workflows.
With OpenProject 17.5, teams can now further tailor Backlogs to their own processes. Administrators can exclude specific work package types from Backlogs, helping teams focus backlog refinement and sprint planning on the work that is actually relevant for agile execution.
Sprint views and work package cards have also been redesigned to improve visibility and provide better context during backlog refinement and sprint planning. Parent work packages, priorities, story points, assignees, and sprint status are now easier to scan, helping teams stay focused on the most important work.
To learn more about upcoming improvements in Backlogs and sprints, read what our CPO Rosanna Sibora wrote about the future of agile work in OpenProject. For information on the current functionalities, please see our user guide.
Other great improvements with OpenProject 17.5
OpenProject 17.5 offers more features and updates. To keep this article concise, here is a quick look at some additional improvements worth highlighting:
More natural work package references
Work package references are now more flexible throughout OpenProject. In Documents, work package links can be inserted directly within text paragraphs, making documentation easier to read and structure. CKEditor-based text fields now also expand work package references to show additional context while editing.
More flexible recurring meetings
Recurring meetings can now be scheduled monthly based on common patterns such as the first Monday or last Friday of a month. OpenProject also reduces meeting-related email noise by consolidating multiple meeting updates into fewer emails.
OpenProject 17.5: Migration, installation, updates and support
Follow the upgrade guide for the packaged installation or Docker installation to update your OpenProject installation to OpenProject 17.5. We update your hosted OpenProject environments (Enterprise cloud) today, June 10, 2026.
You will find more information about all new features and changes in our Release notes and 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 will be happy to support you personally.
- New to OpenProject? To test all features of OpenProject 17.5 right away, create a 14 days free trial instance for our OpenProject Enterprise cloud.
- Prefer to run OpenProject 17.5 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 (all plans).
Credits
A very special thank you goes to Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin, 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 Walid Ibrahim, billy kenne, and Agustín Dall’Alba.
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:
- Đorđe Dželebdžić, for an outstanding number of translations into Serbian (Cyrillic).
- tuananhhurc, for a great number of translations into Vietnamese.
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!
