Why the Story Points field is editable in UI, when it is not on the edit screen?

[Maciej Dudziak _Forgappify_]

I’m a bit confused and hoping someone can clarify the behavior I’m seeing.

In my Jira Software project, the Story Points field is visible on the Issue View, and I can edit it via the UI without any issues. However, when I try to update the same field using the REST API, I receive the following error:

"Field 'customfield_10036' cannot be set. It is not on the appropriate screen, or unknown."

After some investigation, I discovered that while the field was visible on the Issue Layout, it was missing from the Screen configuration. Once I added it to the screen, the REST API call worked as expected.

This made me question how the Issue Layout and Screen configurations could become unsynchronized. Until now, I was under the impression that adding or removing a field via the Issue Layout would automatically update the corresponding screen, and vice versa. I tested this with a regular custom number field, and that assumption still holds true.

However, this doesn’t seem to apply to the Story Points field.

A few additional observations:

• The Story Points field in my instance is of type: com.atlassian.jira.plugin.system.customfieldtypes:float (not the older com.pyxis.greenhopper.jira:jsw-story-points).
• When I remove Story Points from the screen, it remains editable in the Issue View.
• In a fresh Software project created from the Jira Software template (company-managed), the Story Points field appears on the Issue Layout even though it’s not present on the screen.

So, my question is:
How is it possible that I can edit a field in the UI if it’s not present on the Edit screen?
Is this a special case for Story Points, or is there some underlying logic in how Jira handles this field differently?

Any insights would be appreciated. Thanks!

[Marc - Devoteam · Accepted solution]

Hi @Maciej Dudziak _Forgappify_ 

This seems to relate to the development of the new issue view.

Information from Atlassian;

"When we first made the New Issue View, this was one of the fields which were chosen to have special rules in order to reduce confusion. As a result, they still appear despite not being on the edit issue screen.

Despite this, there are other ways to remove the story points field if you don’t want them to appear on the ticket. Using the configure (gear icon), dragging the story points screen to the hidden fields column. This will hide the story points field for that particular project and Issue type

Using the “Field configurations” in Jira admin. Filter for Story points and “Hide” the field. This will affect ALL projects that are using that field configuration.
Using the “Custom fields” in Jira admin. Filter for Story points and edit the context. Modify the context so it is applicable only to project/issue types where they want to see Story points.

WeI acknowledge that this is confusing behaviour and we are working to fix this behaviour in our field configuration at the moment."

[Maciej Dudziak _Forgappify_]

Hi @Marc - Devoteam

That’s very interesting—so there is indeed special handling for that field. Thank you for confirming it!

I'm curious, do you know of any other fields that behave in a similar way?

[Marc - Devoteam]

HI @Maciej Dudziak _Forgappify_ 

Not that I'm aware of.

You might want to reach out to Atlassian to see if there are more fields behaving like this.

[Maciej Dudziak _Forgappify_]

Thanks, now I have found https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/JRACLOUD-85094, which describes similar problem.