How custom fields impact Jira cloud

[Anuradha Madhyani]

Hi,

We are planning a migration from Jira on-prem to Jira cloud. Custom fields have been causing performance issues for us on Data Center version and we are actively trying to reduce the number by looking at the usage of these fields. I wanted to understand how do custom fields impact the performance on Jira cloud. There is not much supporting documentation available about this topic and any help will be appreciated.

Regards

Anuradha

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist- · Accepted solution]

The theory is that as a SAAS offering, you shouldn't be worrying.  In real life, you do, large numbers of custom fields do have poor performance effects on a Jira.

However, since Jira 8, one of the biggest drags they were causing has been massively reduced, and Cloud doesn't suffer from that any more.

You're right to want to reduce them down, but I would not have them at the top of the list of things to look at - network latency, followed by user activity are the main determinants of performance on Cloud

[Matthew Joslin_AppFox_]

Custom field bloat affects search performance, JQL load times, and the 700-field cap in Cloud, so trimming pre-migration is the right instinct. The native admin screens just make it hard to do at scale.

You often have to look to the Marketplace for these things, but Optimizer for Jira is made for that pre-migration cleanup phase.
It gives you a health check score showing where the bloat is concentrated, a Rovo assistant to help you make a start on amends, smart tables cover custom fields, workflows and schemes with usage data, and bulk delete plus config merge let you consolidate duplicates without losing historical data.
The history view is also useful for evidencing progress to stakeholders during a migration project. Can try it for free on the Atlassian Marketplace if you're interested.

[Kate Caldecott]

@Anuradha Madhyani 

If you do end up getting to this project, we collaborated with @Rachel Wright , author of the Jira Strategy Admin Workbook on this exact topic to produce a free ebook, "Battling Jira Custom Field Bloat"

Might be good for some ideas when you get to it eg: "what to do with those custom fields".