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.

[Aaron Pavez _ServiceRocket_]

Hi @Ben Dangelmayr _Dangel Studio_ 

Sadly this will fall into the "Train your users" area. You can create all the automation you want, but if you dont have a way to get the real data from, then its difficult. 

You could query with JQL all the work items in a certain date or under that sprint and check for invalid data. Which is difficult if you dont know what you are looking for or if you have too many work items.

Tran your people and make them responsible of that data.

Regards