Since 1.414.85, the focus has shifted from the AI plumbing to the day-to-day texture of working in a team that’s past the basics. This release adds the bits people start asking for once they have real people, real tasks, and real noise to manage — pin a decision, follow a task, mention a role, see what’s blocking what, and quiet the channel without cutting the cord.
Sharper conversations on each task
- Edit your own comments — honestly. Posted something you want to refine? Hit the pencil. Previous content is archived and surfaced behind a small “edited” tag, so the audit trail stays intact while you fix typos or add context.
- Pin a decision to the top. A subtle yellow chip floats the important comment up where the next reader will actually see it. No more scrolling to find the one that mattered.
- Mention roles, not just people. @owner, @admin, @member plus any soft project roles you’ve set on your team — @Backend, @Designer, @QA, whatever fits your work — are now first-class mentions. Microsoft Teams notifications de-duplicate across individuals and groups so nobody gets pinged twice, and a soft warning past ten recipients keeps the mass-pings honest.
Coordinate the work, not just track it
- Task dependencies are real now. Predecessor and successor links between tasks, with cycle detection that catches when you’d accidentally close a loop. A new “Depends on / Blocks” panel on the task detail shows both directions, with a small “Blocked by N” alert when something upstream isn’t done.
- Arrows in the Gantt view. Right-angle arrows now connect each predecessor’s bar to its successor’s. They stay anchored to the bars as you scroll horizontally, so the visual story holds up even on a long timeline.
- Blocked badges in List and Kanban. Any task with unmet predecessors gets a small “Blocked” pill, so you can see at a glance which cards are stuck without opening them.
- A gentle warning on Complete. Trying to mark a task done while predecessors are still open? You get a warning with a “Complete anyway” checkbox — nothing forced, just a sanity check.
- Your AI agents know too. The MCP tools surface dependencies in the get-task response and accept predecessors when creating or updating a task, so AI assistants reason about task ordering without a second round trip.
Manage who’s on the team
- Read-only “Viewer” role. For stakeholders, reviewers, and observers — people who need to see everything but shouldn’t be making changes. Viewers see the full project but cannot write through the UI, the MCP tools, or the bot. The existing roles — owner, admin, member — are unchanged.
- Inline role-change picker. The Project page now has a small dropdown next to each member chip so admins can flip Member, Viewer, and Admin without leaving the page. This control simply didn’t exist before — the only role-change path used to be the legacy “step down from Owner” flow.
- A warning before you remove someone still in the Teams channel. The next channel auto-sync would otherwise silently re-add them. Now the confirmation tells you the situation up front. Also new: the admin “Remove member” button itself — the API existed but the button didn’t.
Quieter channels, sharper signal
- Per-project Teams channel notification settings. Admins choose exactly which event categories post to the linked Microsoft Teams channel: comments, status and completion, assignment, schedule, details, or creation. Master toggle for “everything off” too. Defaults stay all-on, so existing projects are unchanged until you opt out.
- In-app notification bell. A bell with an unread badge now sits in the Tasks toolbar. Click it for the latest ten things relevant to you — mentions, assignments, comments and status changes on tasks you follow. Mark all read in one shot, or click any row to land on the task with that notification marked read.
- Follow a task. A new “Follow / Following” toggle next to the task title lets you opt in to a task you’re not assigned to. Being mentioned or assigned auto-follows the task, so you keep getting the next round of updates without having to be re-mentioned each time.
Settings, refreshed
The Settings page has been consolidated into a clean 8-zone, 2-column layout — Profile, Task Reminders, Feature Requests, Version, License Management, Sync, Bot Memory, and Danger Zone. Single Save per zone instead of per field, action buttons consistently in the bottom-right, and a brand new “Sync now” button for keeping your activity counters honest.
As always, AB Projects updates automatically — nothing to install. If anything looks off after the new version lands for you, the team is only a message away.