Value of Custom Description Field is transfered to Description System Field

[Rafael Freymueller]

Hi,

so I just ran into the following issue. I'm trying to explain it the best I can but I am a bit lost what could cause the behavior as I don't see any active settings / automations that would cause this.

In one of our projects we use a Custom Description field with an adjusted default value / template in it.

When creating a new issue the Custom Description field shows up in the creation screen. However, after creating the issue, the content of the Custom Description field moves to the Description system field. So 2 different Description fields; 1 custom and 1 standard system field.

Does anyone have any idea what would cause this?

This is impeding on my ability to set up an automation that clones issues and copies the description of the issue triggering the automation. Essentially the automation tries to copy the System Description field. However, as it creates a new issue by cloning it, the value is not copied due to the description field in the creation process being the Custom description field.

Ideally I would only want to have the Custom description field and get rid of the System description field. However when trying to remove the System description field and just having the Custom description field within the screens & layout, the content disappears after creating an issue. 

As mentioned I have no clue what would cause this and would appreciate any help as I am utterly lost and could not find anything online.

I have added 2 screenshots of the different fields. Notice that one says "Beschreibung" which is the custom field for the description. The other one just says "Description" which is the standard system field for the description.

[Jack Brickey · Accepted solution]

Hi @Rafael Freymueller ,

the first thing I would suggest is to check the history tab on one of the issues where this is happening and see if there is some smoking gun that would explain what is going on. Can you check that and report back? Feel free to share a screenshot if you like. also, does this happen immediately upon creating the issue? 

[Rafael Freymueller]

Hi @Jack Brickey ,

thank you very much for reaching out so quick!

After checking the history for one of the issues I found that the extension "Jira Misc Workflow extensions" is doing the change.

However, the external company that set everything up in the Extension can no longer support us. As this post-function affects pretty much all of our projects where we use the "Beschreibung" field, I am not sure what would be a good workaround as there are thoudsands of tickets that would be affected by changing anything.

[Jack Brickey]

Hi @Rafael Freymueller , it is difficult for me to definitively guide you without better understanding your situation. However I will do the best I can and give you my recommendation.

It sounds like you have a situation here where you are using company managed projects with shared workflows and schemes. Moreover, for whatever reason, this extension is copying the custom description field to the system description field. I am guessing that this is because the system defined description field can't be modified to include a template, although I am questioning the accuracy of that as I type. So someone created a custom field and set up a default template and used the extension to copy it to the system field. This is all just a guess. With that said, what I recommend is that if you do not want this to occur in a specific project then you should create a unique workflow (copy the original and disable the post function) and associate it to your specific issue types in your project instead of using the current shared workflow.

[Rafael Freymueller]

Thanks again @Jack Brickey 

I think you hit the nail on the head. 

The "Beschreibung" custom field has many different default values for various projects. Because you cannot change the default value for system fields, I assume the post-function was established within the extension.

For the reasons I can only speculate, potentially so you don't have dozens of different custom description fields throughout your Jira instance which would make searching for values across boards more difficult.

It seems we have quiet a few instances of the same post-functions for different workflows. I will not try to find the correct one affecting the project in question and try the approach with creating a unique workflow through copying the current one.
I will mark this as resolved as I have found the root cause with your input!

Thanks a ton!