Pre-populate description before issue is "created"

[Lisa Lee]

Hi there,

I created an automation in a Jira project whereby, the trigger is Task issue is created, action is to populate the decription field with a text template. The automation works as expected.

The issue the team now has, is that if they go to create a task issue type, they fill out a blank description field, which then gets overwritten once they have created the issue.

Is there a way to have the field populate as they are "creating" the issue?

Any suggestions?

[Kate Pawlak _Appsvio_]

Hi,

Unfortunately, automation always works after creating issue, so it's not useful for creating templates for issues. What's more, keep in mind about new automation limits.

I recommend you to try our app Issue Templates Agent for Jira. With this app you can create as many templates as you need and your users can use them on the native Create issue screen, so it looks like a standard behaviour.

If you have some detailed requirements, I'll be happy to chat :) You can book time here: calendly.com/appsvio.

[Kristian Walker _Adaptavist_]

Hi Lisa,

If you use ScriptRunner for Jira Cloud then you can use Behaviours to set the default description template and have this only set the value when the description field does not have a value.

We have an example script to show how to do this located here. 

Please note Behaviours only currently supports Company Managed Software and Company Managed Work management projects.

I hope this helps.

Regards,

Kristian

[Aleksandra Bosacka _Deviniti_]

Hello @Lisa Lee 

It’s Aleksandra from Deviniti - the vendor of the Issue Templates for Jira app.

Apart from the possibilities explained below, you could also use our app to create different kinds of templates (e.g. for bug reports or feature requests) and then apply them when creating new issues in your projects and pre-populate field values. Those templates are available to users on the Create issue from template screen.

They can also include sub-tasks or be combined into more complex structures via issue links.

For more details about supported use cases, I encourage you to see our documentation Hopefully you will find it useful!

Cheers,
Aleksandra

[Trudy Claspill]

Hello @Lisa Lee 

Are you working with a Company Managed project or a Team Managed project?

For a Team Managed project you can set default text for the field through the Project Settings.

For a Company Managed project it is not natively possible to set default text for the built-in Description field.

There is a work-around described here that utilizes a custom field which can be pre-populated, and then automation to copy the text the the built in Description field.

https://community.atlassian.com/t5/Jira-questions/Default-text-for-Description-field-on-Jira-Cloud/qaq-p/785597

The other alternative is to use a third party app that gives you functionality to create issue templates, or an app like Adaptavist's ScriptRunner Behaviors that lets you dynamically set fields in the issue creation dialog.

[Bobby Bailey]

@Lisa Lee , just to add to @Trudy Claspill 's comment, if you choose to use ScriptRunner you can find a short video showing you how to achieve this here.

Kind regards, 

Bobby