What do you actually check before field data quality becomes a real problem?

[Ben Dangelmayr _Dangel Studio_]

Something I keep running into: the field configuration says a field is required, everybody assumes the data is there, and then somebody builds a report on it and the numbers are nonsense.

The two failure modes i see are always the same. Required-on-create teaches people to type something to get past the dialog, so you end up with a due date that is technically filled and completely meaningless. And empty rich text counts as filled in most reports, because a description holding an empty paragraph node is not the same as null.

What i have not figured out is the right moment to look. Waiting until someone complains about a report is too late, but checking by hand every sprint does not survive contact with a real backlog.

Two questions for people running bigger instances than mine:

• do you have a routine for this, or is it always reactive?
• which fields actually turn out to matter? my guess is due date and assignee carry most of the weight, but that might just be my projects.

[Danno]

@Ben Dangelmayr _Dangel Studio_ if you make a field required, the user has to enter a value on create, 

A due date is valid data whether or not it is realistic and accurate.

If you have a free-text field, good luck, as your assumption about bad data corrupting reports is valid. I can't even figure out why(or how) you would build a report, dashboard, or any other metric tool using free-text fields.

Assignee might not be a good choice depending on who creates the issue. If it is from an external source, form or CSM ticket, you might not have a default value for assignee to triage the ticket. It could end up in a backlog until that gets planned and assigned.

I have a limited number of required fields in my system and tend to rely more on validation rules and automation to populate needed fields so that they will fit a predetermined filter, etc.

Hope this helps. If you have a specific set of requirements, it might help to publish those here to gather other users' ideas on how they handle it.