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Meaning of Description, Summary, Text.. etc.

Nicolas Duchastel De Montrouge

What is the field name for the "title" / "subject" of a task / epic / story etc...

i.e. what shows up just below the project and ID of the object?

Documentation is not helpful because it does not define terms but rather just uses the term being defined in the sentence.

For example, looking at the "field reference":

Description:

Search for issues where the description contains particular text.

And then, for Summary:

Summary:

Search for issues where the summary contains particular text

Those two definition are useless... yeah, a Description is a description; but, what part of the task, epic, story, etc.. is the Description vs the Summary etc..

Please update documentation to be more helpful.

AND,... WHAT is that text at the top of an object? what is that called?

Accepted answers

Heidi Hendry

Hi Nicolas,
I understand that you are having some confusion in identifying which field on your screen is named "Summary".

Using your image, I've identified some of the fields you were concerned about:

I reviewed the existing documentation explaining the fields and can see that you are correct, there is no easy diagram explaining which unlabelled item on the screen is which field.

What is an issue? | Jira Software Cloud | Atlassian Support
Create an issue and a sub-task | Jira Software Cloud | Atlassian Support
Update an issue's details | Jira Software Cloud | Atlassian Support

I have logged an internal request referencing this question, and asked for more clarity in the documentation.

Hope that helps.
Regards
Heidi
Atlassian Support.

All comments

Nic Brough -Adaptavist-

The system field names have been chosen to try to be as close to an explanation of what they're for as possible with a short phrase.

In most cases, I can't really explain it any other way, but working through your list:

Summary: A summary of what the issue is about, a short phrase to give you an idea of what the issue is about
Description: Literally, a description of the issue
Title: not a standard field, you'll need to ask your admins. Some people sometimes call the summary a title, but that's not what title means in English. You probably want to dump this and use the summary.
Subject: not a standard field, you'll need to ask your admins. Probably another synonym for summary in Jira, but a much better synonym than title. But you still probably want to dump this and use the summary.

If you're still stuck on what the fields are for, I can't go any better than "look up Summary and Description in a dictionary"!

Nicolas Duchastel De Montrouge

ah; yes, a dictionary. I know what this is.

I am not asking "what does the word 'summary' mean in the English language?"

I am asking, "in Jira, the field named 'Summary' is used where on the JIRA UI page and how? When I look at a task / bug / epic etc... on the JIRA page, WHERE is the Summary? And for that matter, Where is the Title? Is there a Subject?"

See a sample JIRA task

So, now, with this context....

What is the Summary? the Title? The Subject? etc..

Maybe the documentation should explain that - what each part of the Jira form is called. I do not need the definition of the English word. I can use a dictionary.

Thank you,

Nicolas

Nic Brough -Adaptavist-

Ok, so lets focus on "In Jira, the field named 'Summary' is used where on the JIRA UI page and how? When I look at a task / bug / epic etc... on the JIRA page, WHERE is the Summary? And for that matter, Where is the Title? Is there a Subject?"

The field summary is usually used to contain a summary of the issue.

On a Jira page, it appears where you have pointed to in your screenshot, quite prominent because it's the summary and hence what most humans will want to talk about if there's any need to discuss the issue.

Title and Subject are different things to a summary, the words mean different things. Jira does not have a title or subject field (unless you deliberately add one)

Also "Maybe the documentation should explain that - what each part of the Jira form is called."

It does. It describes the field "summary" as the summary. Description is described as a description, The other system fields have names that tell you what they are for.

My feeling here is that you are not asking us the right question. I can not work out what you are looking for. You've asked twice about title and subject and I've told you that these are things you are making up (or your admins have added and not explained to you). I do not know what you are looking for when you ask what a summary is or where it is - it's a summary and it's on screen where most people would expect to see it. I do not know what more I can tell you about a summary being a summary.

Heidi Hendry

Hi Nicolas,
I understand that you are having some confusion in identifying which field on your screen is named "Summary".

David Wolfman

How fun, Atlassian chooses how the English language works now. A summary could also be considered a title or description. Also funny that a Google search brought me here when I was also was searching for more context as to what Atlassian considered each field to mean. Good times. I wonder how many hits this page sees from people searching for similar things via Google. I agree with the OP on this post. Thanks for your replying though... By default there is no 'title' or 'subject' field and we are looking for "Summary" as the correct field for the big and bold "Title" of each Jira "Issue".

gary carter_chj3z9

It's even more confusing when Roadmaps uses the 'summary' and doesnt let you use the 'Title' as an option.

I think part of the confusion stems from the fact most people assume the big bold writing at the top (summary) is where most people would expect to see the 'Title'...?

I note that in the images used above, there isnt actually a field for 'Title', which I do see on our own EPICs here, and only really see them when in the backlog view.

The fact roadmaps shows a 'Summary' and not a 'Title' is illogical and makes life very difficult for our users.

gary carter_chj3z9

raised a suggestion which i believe relates to this topic, any upvotes much appreciated

[JPOSERVER-7021] Summary v Title - Roadmaps and Jira - Create and track feature requests for Atlassian products.

Nic Brough -Adaptavist-

Advanced roadmaps is simply being consistent. The summary of an issue is its summary, and AR is displaying that.

You have added a redundant "title" field which is fine, but AR is not going to use it when it is trying to show you the summary of an issue.

gary carter_chj3z9

I wouldn't say AR is being consistent, it is just be limited in customisation.

We havent 'added' a 'redundant' field. we have used what is available - a title, and simply think that the title is far more the obvious and useful thing that should be presented in such a busy view..

e.g. if AR showed the 'Title' field, and you could hover over it, and be presented with the 'summary' i know every user would think this is significantly more 'intuitive', rather than being 'consistent'.