How to change the name of "Reporter" to "Project Lead"

Question

Hi,

I heard that Jira's job role titles ("reporter" or "assignee") and the name "issue" (instead of tasks) are remnants from the time that Jira was a bug issue reporting system.

Is there a way to change it/them? Any way to make it more current, and in-line with what all the project management systems use? Like Asana?

I don't want to "report" an "issue." You "report" issues when something is wrong. I want to create "tasks" that are part of a project. Who wants to create an issue?!

If there isn't an easy front-end way to change it, could we hire a programmer to change it for us?

Thanks, everybody!

Laurie

Nic Brough -Adaptavist- · Answer

My concern about doing this is that you will be making changes that make it unsupported by Atlassian, but also when someone who has used Jira before encounters yours, you're going to slow them down and waste their time and yours, as well as make all the online help and documentation harder to read and apply.

What is wrong with "reporter"?  Do you really have projects where every single issue is reported only by the "project lead"?  Odd way to work, but possible.  But easily fixed in a supportable way - use a post-function to set the reporter to the project lead on "issue create", then don't allow it to be edited.

However, I think you missed a point.  There are two uses of "issue" in Jira, but Idid not expand on that too clearly.

It is a word used by Jira to describe the principle of "an object representing something that needs some attention".  That's far too long, and really should be something more snappy.  Atlassian went with "issue" because it is vague but works - it's "something that needs attention", without being limited to any real type.  "Item" implies a physical precense, "Task" limits it to an activity, which is not what bugs, features, stories can be described as.  I've not yet seen a better term.  Issue isn't great, but it's probably the best we've got.

You will find the term "issue" used throughout the Jira documentation, and the admin section.  But it's barely used in front of the people using the UI day-to-day.  Note for example the text on the button that leads to creation of an issue - it just says "create".

And you don't need an issue type called "issue".  Jira works fine if you scrap it completely.

The best thing you can do here is simple - go to Admin -> Issues -> Issue types and name your issue types in the way you want to see them.  Merge all of them down to a single type of "task" if that's what works for you.

If you really insist on inflicting poor names on things at every level though, you could start hacking the core of Jira.  A better option would be however, to "translate" it from English to Your-English.  In the past, you had to do this with a "language pack" which meant getting the standard English language pack, editing all the text in it to match what you want, and installing it and setting it as the default language.  This still works, but the other option is to look at the "InProduct Translations" app which can do it in a slightly more friendly way than poring over several thousand lines of text.  (Your people can, fortunately, still turn this off and revert to standard Jira language for themselves)

Laurie Schmidt · Answer

We are not using it as a "bug tracker, an HR system, an issue tracker, a development tool." That is my point. We are using it as a task management/project management tool. The word "task" is not a terrible word for us. Projects are composed of many tasks.

You wrote "You don't want reporter to be renamed to "project lead" - for most of the time, it's completely wrong."

It may be completely wrong for you, but not for us.

My questions still remain and thank you for your opinions.

Nic Brough -Adaptavist- · Answer

You don't want reporter to be renamed to "project lead" - for most of the time, it's completely wrong.  The reporter is the person who reported the issue, not always the leader of the project.

There's two things about "Issue".  First, it is the best word you could use for the principle.  You might prefer "ticket" (this is actually an abuse of the word, but meh, we're stuck with it), or "Story", or "Task".  But each one of these is not useful for other people.  If you're using Jira as a bug tracker, an HR system, an issue tracker, a development tool, then generally, "Task" is a terrible word.  Issue is not a great choice of word for the principle, but it's decently generic unlike "task".

Oh, and yes, you do "report tasks" - especially when you want someone else to do it.

Second, Jira has "issue" as one of the default issue types.  This is just the name of a type.  If you don't like the word, rename the issue type to something that works for you.

(The only issue type you should not rename is "Epic" if you're using Jira Software, and that's hopefully changing soon)