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OpenProject Release 17.2: AI that plays by your rules

OpenProject 17.2: KI für Ihre Projekte. Sicher und unter Ihrer Kontrolle.

Veröffentlicht von Anna Mohn 11. März 2026 Geschätzte Lesezeit: 10 Minuten

OpenProject 17.2 has been released and introduces several improvements across the platform. This release opens new possibilities for integrating AI into your project workflows, improves transparency on the Project Overview page, and continues our work on usability and accessibility.

One highlight of this release is the introduction of the MCP Server, which enables secure connections between OpenProject and AI systems while keeping full control over how project data is accessed.

In diesem Artikel stellen wir die wichtigsten Änderungen vor und erläutern, was sie für Ihre tägliche Arbeit bedeuten. As always, please see our release notes that contain the complete list of features, changes, and bug fixes.

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Bring AI to your projects with secure MCP Server (Professional plan and higher)

Artificial intelligence is quickly becoming part of everyday work. Teams are exploring AI assistants that can answer questions, summarize information, and help analyze project data.

Many organizations are therefore asking the same question: How can we bring AI into our project workflows without losing control over our data and systems?

With OpenProject 17.2, we introduce the MCP Server, a new capability that enables secure connections between OpenProject and AI systems.

The MCP Server implements the Model Context Protocol (MCP) and exposes OpenProject’s APIv3 resources as MCP-compatible endpoints. This allows external tools, including large language models (LLMs) and other MCP clients, to access structured project data from OpenProject in a controlled way.

With this connection in place, AI assistants can interact with real project context. For example, they can summarize project status, analyze dependencies between work packages, or support planning workflows based on up-to-date information from OpenProject.

At the same time, control remains fully in your hands. The MCP Server integrates with OpenProject’s authentication mechanisms, including OAuth2, API tokens, and external OpenID Connect providers. Administrators can configure the server directly in OpenProject and control aspects such as response formats and response volume.

The MCP Server was sponsored and developed with the support of Mercedes-AMG, who are actively using it in their OpenProject environment. Their collaboration helped shape the feature based on real-world requirements and demonstrates how large organizations can benefit from securely connecting AI workflows to their project data.

OpenProject administration page showing the Model Context Protocol (MCP) settings, including options to enable the MCP server and configure title, description, and tool response format.

Administrators can configure the MCP Server directly in the OpenProject administration interface and control aspects such as response formats and response volumes. This allows organizations to decide how their project data is exposed and how external tools interact with it.

To learn about how to use the MCP server, please see our documentation.

Hinweis
The MCP Server is available as an Enterprise add-on in the Professional plan and higher. Auf unserer Preisseite und Kontakt finden Sie weitere Informationen zum Upgrade auf einen höheren Tarif.

Reusable meeting templates (Basic plan and higher)

Preparing meetings often involves recreating the same agenda structure again and again. With OpenProject 17.2, administrators can now define reusable meeting templates that provide a predefined agenda layout for their teams.

Instead of starting from scratch, users can select a template when creating a meeting. The agenda will automatically include predefined sections and items.

This saves time when preparing meetings and helps teams reuse proven formats for discussions and decision-making.

OpenProject Meetings module showing the Templates page with reusable meeting templates such as OKR check-in template, sprint retrospective, and weekly meeting template.

Hinweis
The reusable meeting templates are available as an Enterprise add-on in the Basic plan and higher. Auf unserer Preisseite und Kontakt finden Sie weitere Informationen zum Upgrade auf einen höheren Tarif.

Project Overview improvements with budget widgets and improved accessibility

OpenProject 17.2 enhances the Project Overview page to provide clearer financial insights, easier editing, and improved accessibility.

Budget widgets for financial insights

Project managers and stakeholders can now see key financial indicators directly on the Overview page.

New widgets display information such as:

planned budget
actual costs
spent budget
remaining budget

Visual breakdowns by cost type and recent monthly actuals help teams understand financial trends directly within the project context.

OpenProject Project Overview page displaying budget widgets including total actual costs, planned budget, spent ratio, remaining budget, a pie chart of budget by cost type, and a chart of actual costs by month.

Inline editing for project description and status

The project description and project status widgets on the Overview tab can now be edited directly inline. Authorized users can update information directly where it is displayed.

OpenProject Project Overview page showing the project description widget being edited inline with formatting options and a save button.

Improved accessibility of Project Overview and dashboard widgets

We have significantly improved the accessibility of widgets on both the Project Overview and Project dashboard pages. Widgets are now fully operable via keyboard, provide clearer structural semantics for screen readers, and follow WCAG 2.1 AA guidelines for focus management, labeling, and navigation order.

These improvements ensure that project information and controls are accessible to all users, including those relying on assistive technologies.

Comment fields for project attributes

Project attributes often require additional explanation. For example, a chosen value may depend on assumptions, governance decisions, or project-specific context.

With OpenProject 17.2, administrators can now enable comment fields for project attributes. This allows users to document the reasoning behind selected attribute values directly where the attribute is maintained.

Comments follow the same permission logic as the attribute itself and are:

displayed alongside the attribute on the Project Overview page
tracked in project activity
included in exports
accessible via the API

This provides additional transparency and helps teams better understand important project decisions.

OpenProject administration interface for project attributes showing the option to add a comment text field when configuring a project attribute.

PDF export improvements

OpenProject 17.2 enhances PDF exports to provide more comprehensive reporting.

Work package queries can now include relationship columns, which are exported as structured tables in the PDF report. This ensures that dependencies between work packages remain visible in exported documentation.

In addition, WebP images embedded in work package descriptions are now supported in exported PDFs.

PDF export of an OpenProject work package displaying a structured table of related work packages and an embedded diagram image in the description.

Following external links inside collaboration platforms can sometimes pose security risks.

Building on the external link safety options introduced in OpenProject 17.1, OpenProject 17.2 adds the option to require users to be logged in before opening external links.

When this setting is enabled, users must authenticate before they can follow external links.

Hinweis
This feature is available as an Enterprise add-on in the Premium plan and higher. Auf unserer Preisseite und Kontakt finden Sie weitere Informationen zum Upgrade auf einen höheren Tarif.

OpenProject administration settings page for external links with the option enabled to require users to be logged in before following external links.

UX/UI updates with the Primer design system

OpenProject continues the transition to the Primer design system, helping unify the user interface across the application.

Backlogs module update

The Backlogs module has been updated using Primer components. This results in a cleaner layout and more consistent interaction patterns.

Work packages can now also be viewed in a split screen, allowing teams to manage backlog items while reviewing work package details.

OpenProject Backlogs module showing a backlog organized by versions with work packages listed on the left and the work package details displayed in a split screen on the right.

Improvements in administration interfaces

Administrative interfaces for Custom Fields, Versions, and Groups have also been aligned with the Primer design system.

OpenProject 17.2: Migration, installation, updates and support

Follow the upgrade guide for the packaged installation or Docker installation to update your OpenProject installation to OpenProject 17.2. We update your hosted OpenProject environments (Enterprise cloud) today, March 11, 2026.

You will find more information about all new features and changes in our Release notes and in the OpenProject Documentation.

Falls Sie Unterstützung benötigen, stellen Sie Ihre Fragen im Community Forum. Falls Sie für den Enterprise-Support berechtigt sind, kontaktieren Sie uns und wir werden Sie gerne persönlich unterstützen.

Neu bei OpenProject? To test all features of OpenProject 17.2 right away, create a 14 days free trial instance for our OpenProject Enterprise cloud.
Prefer to run OpenProject 17.2 in your own infrastructure? Hier finden Sie die Installationsrichtlinien für OpenProject.
Möchten Sie Ihre Community Version upgraden, um die Enterprise Add-ons auszuprobieren? Erhalten Sie einen 14 Tage kostenlosen Test-Token, um die Enterprise-Add-ons (alle Pläne) zu testen.

Danksagungen

A very special thank you goes to Mercedes-AMG for sponsoring the MCP server feature and supporting its development. Your collaboration and real-world feedback helped shape this functionality and demonstrate how large organizations can benefit from securely connecting AI workflows to their project data in OpenProject.

We would also like to thank Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin, City of Cologne, Deutsche Bahn and ZenDiS for sponsoring released or upcoming features. Ihre Unterstützung, zusammen mit den Bemühungen unserer großartigen Community, hilft uns, solche Innovationen voranzutreiben. Ein großes Dankeschön geht auch an unsere Community Mitglieder, die uns helfen, Fehler zu finden und zu beheben. Special thanks for reporting and finding bugs go to Alexander Aleschenko, Gabor Alexovics, Jörg Mollowitz and Александр Татаринцев.

Nicht zuletzt sind wir sehr dankbar für unsere sehr engagierten Übersetzer:innen auf Crowdin, die eine ganze Reihe von OpenProject-Strings übersetzt haben! Für dieses Release möchten wir insbesondere den folgenden Personen danken:

Adam Siemienski, für eine große Anzahl von Übersetzungen ins Polnische.
Mehmet Coşkun, for a great number of translations into Turkish.
Liangzdz, for a great number of translations into Chinese Simplified.

Möchten Sie selbst bei den Übersetzungen mithelfen? Dann werfen Sie einen Blick in unseren Übersetzungsleitfaden und erfahren Sie, wie genau Sie beitragen können. Wir wissen das sehr zu schätzen!

Wie immer freuen wir uns über jedes Feedback zu dieser Version.