How can I avoid creating 100+ custom fields for a single project?

Question

Hi,

I'm working on a project where I need to have issues that track ~100 requirements that have a value of complies, exception needed, exception granted, requirement changed, etc. plus in some cases include a date for the value.   I need to then be able to sum the number and percentages for each of the values within a single issue, across all issues within a project or across issues that meet a specific requirement.  I'm trying to figure out how this can be done without creating custom fields for each of the requirements.  I have been looking at Apps (checklists, forms, etc.) but so far haven't found any that solve this issue.  Any suggestions?

Daniel Ebers · Answer

Hi @KathyN

I am not sure if I am getting the requirements right and the following will be a full match but I try to explain what I have seen so far in the past, hoping this helps.

When there is the requirement to introduce more than 3-4 custom fields, and lets say, a sheet with 100 newly to be created custom fields is requested we normally asked if they are really needed for reporting purposes.
Now you stated calculations should be done upon the values entered which might qualify (some?) of them to really exist.

It could make sense to evaluate which of them are necessary to have them alongside with issue's data and which calculation could probably be done outside of Jira.

An option which we really loved to recommend in past was to use some kind of table, inside Jira (^= inside the issue). Data is stil there but not in terms of a custom field.

You can find some Apps from Marketplace:
https://marketplace.atlassian.com/search?query=tables

Some of them even promise to do calculation of values as part of their offerings - but I cannot speak for that. Such calculations were none a requirement in past for our use cases.

Storing larger amounts of data in a structured way (classical columns/rows) however is something they are very capable of. Some Apps even allow data to be searched in the respective rows, this would however need to time to inspect for you to see which one fits best.

Regards,
Daniel

KathyN · Answer

Thanks for the reply.  My project is a standard compliance tracker project (that is currently being done via spreadsheet).

A similar example that you may be familiar with is the program by the US Green building council to track getting buildings Leeds certified.  To be Leeds certified, you need to meet a lot of criteria like:  roof insulation > Rxx, lighting is all LED that produces or exceeds xx lumens/Watt, the building is created with a minimum of xx% recycled materials, etc.)  In this project (like the one I'm doing), you need to be able to track overall compliance per candidate for certification, overall compliance % per candidate,  be able to have an overall compliance for a specific requirement across all potential candidates, etc.  In addition, you also want to be able to insert the actual number (so for example:  The requirement may be a minimum of 25% recycled material but the value achieved is 33% which should be recorded) and also the ability to determine Avg/Mean by requirement across all candidates (nice to have).

Does this help?  What other details do you need?  Thanks again for the help.

Dirk Ronsmans · Answer

Hey @KathyN and welcome to the community!

Could you maybe elaborate a bit on what exactly you are trying to do? I'm struggling to understand the exact use case.

Maybe if you could go a bit deeper on how the project is organized and what type of requirements these are we could think of something..

My mind immediatly jumps to PPM (Project Portfolio Management) tools or Confluence links.. but that's without having a good grasp on your context.

I feel like you need to be able to get to a proper granularity so you can re-use the conept and create a limited number of custom fields.