OpenProject runs the operational core of a business: work packages, Gantt timelines, boards, time logs, meetings, wikis. Most owners spend their first week clicking through settings to make it match how their team actually works. With a Vibe-code agent in the chat you can describe the outcome and watch the configuration happen on your own server. These ten jobs are the everyday ones worth delegating first.

1. Set up a project the way you actually work

Your first project teaches you OpenProject’s vocabulary: work package types, statuses, categories. Instead of a weekend in the settings menus, describe the shape and let the agent build it, then walk the result in the UI. You can ask why it chose any setting, which turns the setup into a guided tour of your own instance.

Say: “Create a project called Website Redesign with phases for Discovery, Design, Build, and Launch, and work package types for Feature, Bug, and Chore.”

2. Draw your Gantt chart with dependencies in it

A timeline only earns its keep when dependencies are modeled, because that is what shows the real cost of a slipping task. The agent creates your milestones and work packages, wires the precedes/follows relations between them, and opens the timeline view so the whole plan fits on one screen. Do it once together and the team maintains it from there. Relations are the part everyone skips because drawing them by hand is tedious; saying them out loud in one sentence is not. The agent can also set the timeline’s zoom and color scheme so the chart reads clearly before you screen-share it in a review. Say: “Build the Q4 roadmap in the Gantt chart with a milestone per release and dependencies between the phases, so if design slips the build dates move too.”

3. Stand up a scrum backlog

OpenProject’s backlogs module gives you sprints, story points, and a task board, but it is off by default and buried in the project settings. The agent enables the module, creates your first sprints, and seeds the backlog from a list you paste in. Point values and sprint assignments stay fully editable afterwards. Say: “Set up a scrum backlog for the dev team with Sprints 1 to 4 and story points enabled, and turn these 30 epics into user stories.”

4. Clean up an inherited backlog

Migrated or years-old backlogs are full of duplicates, stale statuses, and miscategorized items nobody dares touch by hand. The agent reads every work package, finds near-duplicates by title, and proposes merges and closures before changing anything. You approve the list, it executes, and each change lands as a journal entry so you can audit what happened. Say: “Find duplicate work packages and propose merging them, then close everything that hasn’t been updated in a year.”

5. Build the views your standups need

Every filter you build in OpenProject can be saved and shared, which is where weekly reporting should live. Have the agent construct the three or four views your meetings run on — finished this week, overdue, high priority and unassigned — save them for the whole team, and put them on the project overview so nobody rebuilds them by hand. Saved views also drive the CSV and PDF exports, so when a stakeholder asks for a progress file, the exact filter the team already trusts is one click away. Say: “Create saved filters for work packages closed this week, everything overdue, and all high-priority items with no assignee, and pin them to the project overview.”

6. Chase the missing timesheets

Logged time only feeds planning if it is complete, and chasing it is nobody’s favorite job. The agent compares each person’s logged hours against their working week and shows you the gaps, then nudges people the way you prefer: a comment on their active work packages or a direct reminder. Say: “Show me who logged under 30 hours last week and add a friendly comment on their active work packages reminding them to fill in their time.”

7. Run meetings out of OpenProject

Meetings live next to the work they discuss: agenda items and minutes can link straight to work packages. The agent creates your recurring meeting series with a standing agenda and links the current sprint’s open work packages to each occurrence, so minutes stop living in someone’s inbox. Say: “Create a Monday sprint-planning meeting series with a standing agenda: review carry-overs, capacity, new stories, and risks.”

8. Ask questions about your own data

How many work packages are blocked, and on whom? Which assignee carries the most high-priority open work? The agent queries your database directly and answers from your instance, not from generalities. When a question proves worth repeating, it can save the filter as a view for the whole team. Say: “How many tasks are currently blocked, who are they blocked on, and which one has been blocked the longest?”

9. Grow the wiki from scattered notes

Every project wiki starts empty and stays that way because nobody wants to write it. Hand the agent your onboarding document, runbook, or a folder of meeting notes and it structures the pages, links them from the sidebar, and fixes the dead ends. Where a page mentions specific work, it links the page and the work package both ways, so the runbook and the task it describes stay connected. Say: “Create an onboarding wiki for this project with pages for dev setup, the deploy runbook, and how to escalate to support, all linked from the project overview.”

10. Close out a finished project

Finished projects linger: open work packages nobody will do, attachments nobody tidies, write access nobody needs. The agent proposes a close-out and executes what you approve — finish or reject the stragglers, export the timeline and wiki for your archive, and set the project to read-only for everyone except admins. Say: “Close out the Rebranding project: finish or cancel the open work packages, export a final Gantt chart and the wiki, then lock the project to read-only.”

See it in action

Official walkthroughs from the OpenProject team:

Worth a watch next:

• Getting started with OpenProject — the official first-steps tutorial that mirrors several everyday jobs in this list, from creating a project to saving filtered views.
• OpenProject Agile Boards — a tour of the boards and backlog workflow behind the scrum setup ideas here.

Pick one job from this list and check the agent’s work in the OpenProject interface before trusting it with the rest. The loop is simple: describe, review, keep. Once it holds, the bigger automation ideas get much easier. OpenProject on OpenSysLab