How well do the two projects work together?
Status quo: You can link files to OpenProject work packages and vice versa.
You also get a dashboard widget plus search integration.
The most interesting aspect about the integration, IMO, is the upcoming stuff. You can check out the roadmap here and here.
My personal highlights from the roadmap:
- Epic #41400: Create shared folders in Nextcloud and sync userâs permissions
- Epic #41545: Template folder structure for shared project folders
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Thank you very much. Do I understand correctly that it only works with files, but not with e.g. Deck cards/boards?
Nice, could you also offer a comparison to our previous projects functionality:
- link talk conversations
- deck boards
- Files and folders (seems clear these are supported)
See overall discussion of ideas here for the top post.
For now the Openproject integration doesnât support deck boards or a link to talk conversations. I have to admit it would make the integration feel complete if it did. I donât know about any future considerations regarding this but I am just an outside observer so who knows if there are internal plans to do so.
There is an open issue in OpenProjects community board from last year, asking about how to communicate the relation between OpenProject work packages and Nextcloud Deck cards to the users and if there is anything on the roadmap to clear up the redundancy of tasks between the two platforms. Hasnât been answered yet.
I found nothing regarding Nextcloud Talk support on the net.
Respectfully, moved the OpenProject discussion here since it is not the same as the projects deprecation discussed here. This is to avoid further confusion about two different topics that only relate in name as opposed to actual functionality. Thanks, and letâs keep the discussion going in their designated threads!
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Hi everybody, I am Wieland and I am the managing engineer for the OpenProject-Nextcloud integration. Thank you @Daphne for pointing me to the discussion here as I wasnât aware of it. Most of the discussion on the integration happened so far in OpenProjectâs community area. Please feel free to join the discussions there, and please bring your feedback, bug reports and feature requests there so that we use it for planning and adjusting the development roadmap for the integration.
Currently the integration of OpenProject and Nextcloud allows for linking files and folders to work packages. Work packages are tasks, issues, bugs etc. and they are always part of a project. They are used to organize work. The links between work packages and files/folders answer the question âWhere are the files for my tasks? And where shall I save my work results so that the next coworker (assignee of the task) can find them?â.
In the next couple of months we will work on the second question: âHow can I ensure that all project members have access to the files?â. And we will do it by providing a folder in Nextcloud that is shared with all project members, each one with the rights to read, write, create, delete, reshare as defined by their role(s) within the projects.
I think I am a bit late for the discussion on the old âprojectsâ feature in Nextcloud as I donât have it on my Nextcloud 25 anymore. However, to me it does not look like a project but rather like a tag. It simply bundles multiple items (files, talks, deck cards) together. That is not a real project in my eyes. From an OpenProject perspective, a project has team members, each one with specific roles and rights. It is a temporary organization of people, work and knowledge.
So if you want to use the integration for replacing the old Nextcloud projects then I would use an OpenProject work package as they can bundle all relevant files/folders by linking them.
We cannot link talks yet, but I am listening if you come up with proposals.
I donât see any good reason why to combine Nextcloud Deck with OpenProject. If you have OpenProject then you have a fully fledged project management environment, allowing you to have boards, Gantt charts, etc. allowing top-down and buttom-up work flows on the same work packages. Deck (as far as I understand it) is pretty much a subset of it. But please point me to my blind spots if I miss an important use case here.
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The idea of incorporating project management software with a live chat has always been intriguing to me ever since Atlassian presented the first prototype of Stride.
Stride made it easy for teams to interact with the respective JIRA and Confluence pages for a given project.
The idea behind Stride was that messages could be marked as Task or Decision (for a project).
I used the beta with a small team and we loved it. I can speak for us all that Atlassian really struck gold here with both the unique selling point and the UX. It lowered the barrier to keep our projects JIRA and Confluence pages up to date. My guess is that this was because we didnât have to âcontext switchâ between chatting about a project and writing an official work package/documenting a decision.
We were really sad when Slack got involed - just to shut it down. Nothing ever came close to this afterwards.
Maybe there lies some opportunity in the long term relationship with Nextcloud. After the file functionality is done, I would love to see an integration with Nextcloud Talk that picks up on Strides premise.
That being said, a perfect NC Talk integration would feature:
- The ability to subsribe talk conversations to specific projects. Project notifications get pushed to this Talk convo.
- The ability to mark messages as Info, Decision or Task. This could be a great opportunity to synergize with Niels Lindenthals vision for the future meeting module
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@wielinde, thanks for chiming in.
When it comes to me (and I should assume a few other people too), what we have in NC Deck covers our needs when it comes to tracking/documenting tasks and projects. Weâve been using the NC âProjectsâ feature to link various resources together, and have all related items displayed.
For what itâs worth, we donât have a wish to transition to OpenProject, and consequently have a completely new set of infrastructure to manage. All that happened was that the NC Projects feature got dropped by surprise, and we were advised that the OpenProject-NC integration might be suitable to replicate some of the lost functionality.
Turns out, some crucial aspects arenât covered there, so we wondered whether thereâs serious reason that couldnât be added. However, I would guess weâd all rather just have the NC Projects feature reintroduced (and improved upon) instead.
A little update on the integration with OpenProject:
Automatically managed project folders
You can have OpenProject create âautomatically managed project foldersâ in Nextcloud and manage who has access to them. So, by being a member of a project you automatically get access to all the files in the corresponding project folder. That is super neat as OpenProject will ensure that every user who should have access actually has access. No emails for requesting access anymore!
Manually managed project folders
If you already have a folder structure established and you do not want OpenProject to mess with it, you can setup âmanually managed project foldersâ. Instead of OpenProject creating and managing a project folder, you simply pick an existing folder. And you will manually take care that every involved person has access to it. I guess that is what @omrto was looking for in his last paragraph. (UPDATE: @omrto deleted his post.)
Create work packages on a file and link it
In the NC Files app, within the OpenProject tab, you can now create a work package without leaving Nextcloud. Letâs say you finished a draft of a contract and you want to assign it to your lawyer, you can create a work package and assign it to her. The draft is automatically linked to the created work package.
Smart picker integration
You can easily link any work package with the Nextcloudâs smart picker, e.g. in Nextcloud Talk. Just hit â/â and then âOpenProject work packageâ.
Preview cards for work package URLs
Whenever you paste a URL into rich texts in Nextcloud, such as Talk messages, you will get a preview of the work package details. That is pretty convenient as you do not need to click the link in order to understand what the link is actually about.
Link multiple files and folders to a work package at once
In the Files app you can now multi-select files and folders and link them all at once to a work package. That saves you a lot of time.
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I never said thank you for the hint to Stride. I used that example a couple of times in internal product discussions.
BTW: We have now launched the first version a the new Meetings module. There you can add work packages to a meeting agenda and add notes to it.
Now, organizing our own meetings with it, we really feel the need for some âDecisionsâ type of notes.
And yes, for work packages some sort of âRequest for clarificationâ and âDecisionsâ make a lot of sense. Stay tuned.
Thank you for this detailed explanation of the OP/NC integration. Thereâs a lot more to it than I initially realized. I deleted my previous comment because I quickly realized my critique was shortsighted. Your help is greatly appreciated.
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Good morning Wieland,
Thank you for the very good description.
I work in a small business of four people with two permanent developers. I have been using Nextcloud for about three months and exploring the Openproject integration for a couple of weeks. It looks like a great combination so far. Currently, without Nextcloud, we create a new project for a new client and hire new developers for the duration of each project. Everything is done manually.
My plan is to introduce Nextcloud<->OpenProject<->Github as a workflow for our team and clients.
I like the way you describe idea of âAutomatically managed foldersâ. However, I do not understand how the security/visibility of the system works. The Openproject integration creates a group folder on Nextcloud called âOpenprojectâ, and that the integration creates subfolders with the same name as each project on Openproject.
I would like to give our clients and new developers NC accounts and give them access to private folders on Nextcloud,Openproject and Github. Clients will have Nextcloud accounts for as long as we provide them with services.
If I choose âAutomatically managed foldersâ
- Will different customers and developers be able to navigate to the âOpenprojectâ group folder and see projects for other clients?
- Will they be able to see the files in each otherâs folders?
I have my fingers crossed. I added the GitHub integration last week which increases the complexity of the solution but should help us become more efficient and make each project more manageable as we grow.
I appreciate your answer in advance.
Peter
Hi @Tribe (Peter),
yes, the automatically managed project folders are all about those two questions. You set up a project in OpenProject and the integration will take care of the rest. That means, it will make sure that only the project members (and global admins) will automatically have access to the project folder in Nextcloud. Nobody else. They will see the âOpenProjectâ folder and within it, they will only see those project folders of projects they are team member of and not the other project folders.
And once your project finishes and you archive the project, that access will get revoked from the project folder.
I am interested about what your concern is with the GitHub integration. You seem to worried about the complexity of the setup. Do you mind sharing it with me (maybe not in this forum though as it would be offtopic)? BTW: We also released a GitLab integration just recently.
Best regards,
Wieland
Hi Wieland,
Thank you for the âsolidâ response. I will contact you directly over the next few days.
Best wishes,
Peter
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