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Deleting a field is too easy and hard to reverse

Ray Nixon

We've used Jira discovery for about 2 months. In that time twice people have deleted fields on Ideas and we've had to recreate the data. It's too easy for people to delete fields, and there's no undo or restore, so this action is quite impactful (not in a good way).

We need a 'trash' option, so that fields can be undeleted and the data restored.

Accepted answers

All comments

Mart Postma

Hi @Ray Nixon

Did you check the JPD user permission schemes? The default roles already allow you to allow users to create and delete fields (Creators vs. Administrators). So you can ensure that some people in your team have the right to do so (or not).

and

Also, if this is not sufficient for your project, you can even create custom roles and configure the permissions as you wish:

Not the trash bin function you were looking for, but for sure a good workaround to accomplish the same goal.

Ted_awmefe

Hi @Ray Nixon I would say that it is difficult to delete fields from a project. When you try to delete a field, Jira will prompt you to type out the exact name of the field and confirm you want to delete it. It requires deliberate action from the user.

You can also additionally configure the permissions as suggested by Mart to only allow certain users the ability to do this.

Hermance NDounga

Hello Ray,

We already introduced some frictions when deleting a field, prompting a pop-up, giving you the warning the values will be deleted, also informing you that views will be affected, and giving you the list of views, and finally asking you to type the field name to be able to hit the delete button.

Screenshot 2023-12-19 at 15.22.36.png

Also, this action is only available to administrators, who are "power users" in the tool.

So we could it make more complex, but we also need to balance with the fact that people (and admins in this case) just need to get things done 😅

The system of trash for fields doesn't exist in Jira overall, so it is something we would need to create from scratch. It is not something that we have prioritized in the roadmap, but it is something that we might consider in the future.

Best Regards,
Hermance
Product Manager @ Jira Product Discovery

Ray Nixon

Thanks Hermance and Ted and Mart.

Yeah, I guess creating a custom role and not giving other people this access. The two times it's happened have been by people who have site wide Jira admin access.

One time they thought they were deleting an option in the field; the other time they had accidently renamed a field, and then thought they were deleting a field that they had just created.

A trash and restore function would be really great though.

Kristoffer Habberstad

I can confirm that it is "easy" to delete certain things you shouldn't. I just "deleted" our entire roadmap, which relied on a field filter. The action itself is not easy, as you have to confirm it, but it is more about the flow and how you end up in that situation. Maybe it's time for field restoration soon?

I wanted to add a new column to the roadmap but did so incorrectly several times. It had been a while since I had set it up, so I forgot the ways of JPD. Therefore, I had to delete incorrect columns several times, which meant deleting an option in the field in my case. Growing somewhat frustrated and comfortable with deleting options, I ignored the obvious warning about deleting the actual field. The buttons are close to each other.

Becky Groffman

How do you revert deleting a field? I just did this and now my entire roadmap is messed up.

Hermance NDounga

Hello Becky,

It is not possible to revert deleting a field, you'd need to re-create it. You can check in the histoy tab to see what was the value for this field eventually, but that's the only workaround.

Best Regards,
Hermance
Product Manager @ Jira Product Discovery

Helen Platt

Hi Hermance,

Thanks for this reply. I've also made the mistake of deleting the Roadmap field. Do you know where I can find the History tab?

Helen Platt

@Hermance NDounga No need for a reply. I created a new temp project to see what the field type was for Roadmap and then deleted it again.

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