User ability to manually enter multi-entries in a field.

[Daniel Hong]

I am trying to find a way for users to manually enter multiple entries. For example, we use item numbers to distinguish which items will be used for events or promotions.

Some events may have only one item, while others may have two or more items that are used for sales tracking. Is there a field type that allows users to manually enter multiple items in a single field? What I do not want to do is creating child tickets for each items as this flow will not be sustainable if an event has about 12 items that we will need to track.

I am also open to other suggestions that could help achieve this goal.

[Arkadiusz Wroblewski]

Hi @Daniel Hong, welcome to the community!

Unfortunately there's no native Jira field that lets users freely type multiple structured entries in a single field. That said, here are a few options depending on your needs:

Labels is probably the closest built-in option: users can add as many values as they want per work item. The downside is labels are shared across the whole site, so they can get cluttered over time if item numbers are unique per event.

A plain text field (paragraph type) is the simplest workaround: users just type the item numbers separated by commas. It works but you lose the ability to filter cleanly in JQL.

If your item numbers follow a known pattern or set, a multi-select custom field could work too, but that requires pre-defining all values upfront which may not suit your use case.

If none of those fit, it might be worth looking at marketplace apps, there are a few that extend Jira's field capabilities to support this kind of structured multi-value input.

What do the item numbers look like ? are they free-form or do they follow a pattern? That might help narrow down the best option for you.

[Daniel Hong]

Thanks for your response! 

I work in the food industry, where item numbers are often recycled. However, new items are also frequently created through an internal process when they are needed for tests, limited-time offers, or specific promotions. While these items are predefined through that internal setup process, it can be challenging to keep fields up to date given the thousands of unique item numbers currently in circulation.

Item numbers are strictly numeric and do not follow a specific range or pattern.

I am trying to find a way for users to manually enter the item numbers used for specific promotions. By tracking individual items, I can connect this data with Smartsheet to identify potential liabilities and monitor inventory levels for each item.

[Trudy Claspill]

Hello @Daniel Hong 

Welcome to the Atlassian community.

What type of Space does this concern? Get that info from the Type column on the View All Spaces page.

Do you need the users to be able to dynamically create new values in the field? Or would it work for the users to have a predefined list of values from which to select?

Is there a need to filter based on the values entered?

What sort of "tracking" do you need to do related to these items?

You can use a custom field of type Labels. Don't confuse this with the native, system provided field that is named "Labels".

The custom field if type Labels functions the same as the native field named Labels. Users can enter multiple discrete values in the field without those values needing to be predefined.

Values already entered in the field in any project where the field is used become available in all projects that use that field.

So while the values are "global", that applies only in the project where the Labels type field is used. If you need to keep the values different per project you could create separate custom fields of type Labels; one for each project where you need that type of functionality.

Note also that values in Labels type fields cannot have spaces within the values.

If you can provide a predefined list of values then a custom field of type Select List (multiple) could be created for Company-managed Spaces. If you need different values for different projects then Contexts can be defined per project.

Only Jira App Admins can create new custom fields for Company-managed Spaces. If the Space is Team-managed then the Space Admin can create the new custom field.

[Daniel Hong]

Thank you for your response!

I work in the food industry, where item numbers are often recycled. However, new items are also frequently created through an internal process when they are needed for tests, limited-time offers, or specific promotions. While these items are predefined through that internal setup process, it can be challenging to keep fields up to date given the thousands of unique item numbers currently in circulation.

Item numbers are strictly numeric and do not follow a specific range or pattern.

I am trying to find a way for users to manually enter the item numbers used for specific promotions. By having the ability to track individual items as rows, I can connect this data with Smartsheet using JIRA Smartsheet connector to identify potential liabilities and monitor inventory levels for each item.

[Trudy Claspill]

You said "track as rows". Please expand on that.

If the information is available in Jira what would you want to get from Jira related to each item number?

When you say item numbers are recycled do you mean that the number can relate to a different item at different points in time?

You did not address if you want to control what the users can select by predefining the list. Or do you want to allow any user with Edit access to be able to enter new item numbers without validation?

Is this going to be used in a single Jira Space or is the data needed within multiple Jira Spaces?

Are the numbers already available in another system that is accessible through an API or that has the ability to include automation to push the numbers to another system through a REST API call?