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User ability to manually enter multi-entries in a field.

Daniel Hong

I am trying to find a way for users to manually enter multiple entries. For example, we use item numbers to distinguish which items will be used for events or promotions.

Some events may have only one item, while others may have two or more items that are used for sales tracking. Is there a field type that allows users to manually enter multiple items in a single field? What I do not want to do is creating child tickets for each items as this flow will not be sustainable if an event has about 12 items that we will need to track.

I am also open to other suggestions that could help achieve this goal.

Accepted answers

Trudy P Claspill

Hello @Daniel Hong

Welcome to the Atlassian community.

What type of Space does this concern? Get that info from the Type column on the View All Spaces page.

Do you need the users to be able to dynamically create new values in the field? Or would it work for the users to have a predefined list of values from which to select?

Is there a need to filter based on the values entered?

What sort of "tracking" do you need to do related to these items?

You can use a custom field of type Labels. Don't confuse this with the native, system provided field that is named "Labels".

The custom field if type Labels functions the same as the native field named Labels. Users can enter multiple discrete values in the field without those values needing to be predefined.

Values already entered in the field in any project where the field is used become available in all projects that use that field.

So while the values are "global", that applies only in the project where the Labels type field is used. If you need to keep the values different per project you could create separate custom fields of type Labels; one for each project where you need that type of functionality.

Note also that values in Labels type fields cannot have spaces within the values.

If you can provide a predefined list of values then a custom field of type Select List (multiple) could be created for Company-managed Spaces. If you need different values for different projects then Contexts can be defined per project.

Only Jira App Admins can create new custom fields for Company-managed Spaces. If the Space is Team-managed then the Space Admin can create the new custom field.

All comments

Arkadiusz Wroblewski

Hi @Daniel Hong, welcome to the community!

Unfortunately there's no native Jira field that lets users freely type multiple structured entries in a single field. That said, here are a few options depending on your needs:

Labels is probably the closest built-in option: users can add as many values as they want per work item. The downside is labels are shared across the whole site, so they can get cluttered over time if item numbers are unique per event.

A plain text field (paragraph type) is the simplest workaround: users just type the item numbers separated by commas. It works but you lose the ability to filter cleanly in JQL.

If your item numbers follow a known pattern or set, a multi-select custom field could work too, but that requires pre-defining all values upfront which may not suit your use case.

If none of those fit, it might be worth looking at marketplace apps, there are a few that extend Jira's field capabilities to support this kind of structured multi-value input.

What do the item numbers look like ? are they free-form or do they follow a pattern? That might help narrow down the best option for you.

Trudy P Claspill

Hello @Daniel Hong

Welcome to the Atlassian community.

What type of Space does this concern? Get that info from the Type column on the View All Spaces page.

Do you need the users to be able to dynamically create new values in the field? Or would it work for the users to have a predefined list of values from which to select?

Is there a need to filter based on the values entered?

What sort of "tracking" do you need to do related to these items?

You can use a custom field of type Labels. Don't confuse this with the native, system provided field that is named "Labels".

The custom field if type Labels functions the same as the native field named Labels. Users can enter multiple discrete values in the field without those values needing to be predefined.

Values already entered in the field in any project where the field is used become available in all projects that use that field.

Note also that values in Labels type fields cannot have spaces within the values.

Only Jira App Admins can create new custom fields for Company-managed Spaces. If the Space is Team-managed then the Space Admin can create the new custom field.

Daniel Hong

Thanks for your response!

I work in the food industry, where item numbers are often recycled. However, new items are also frequently created through an internal process when they are needed for tests, limited-time offers, or specific promotions. While these items are predefined through that internal setup process, it can be challenging to keep fields up to date given the thousands of unique item numbers currently in circulation.

Item numbers are strictly numeric and do not follow a specific range or pattern.

I am trying to find a way for users to manually enter the item numbers used for specific promotions. By tracking individual items, I can connect this data with Smartsheet to identify potential liabilities and monitor inventory levels for each item.

Daniel Hong

Thank you for your response!

Item numbers are strictly numeric and do not follow a specific range or pattern.

I am trying to find a way for users to manually enter the item numbers used for specific promotions. By having the ability to track individual items as rows, I can connect this data with Smartsheet using JIRA Smartsheet connector to identify potential liabilities and monitor inventory levels for each item.

Trudy P Claspill

You said "track as rows". Please expand on that.

If the information is available in Jira what would you want to get from Jira related to each item number?

When you say item numbers are recycled do you mean that the number can relate to a different item at different points in time?

You did not address if you want to control what the users can select by predefining the list. Or do you want to allow any user with Edit access to be able to enter new item numbers without validation?

Is this going to be used in a single Jira Space or is the data needed within multiple Jira Spaces?

Are the numbers already available in another system that is accessible through an API or that has the ability to include automation to push the numbers to another system through a REST API call?

Daniel Hong

By tracking items by rows, we are able to identify item-level inventory details. If we track items by columns, we will not be able to capture item-level details because multiple items would be grouped together, which we cannot effectively parse for tracking. I’m not sure if this functionality is even possible, but it is not a deal breaker if it cannot be done.

By “recycled items,” I mean we can reuse items that were already set up for new programs. However, we also introduce new items that require a completely new item setup.

Ideally, a user would be able to select from a predefined list, and I can also see potential use cases for multiple Jira spaces.

The item numbers are already available in another system, which we can export and use via API to mass push item numbers. This will likely require some level of manual maintenance, as item numbers may be introduced or become inactive on a daily basis.

Olga Cheban _TitanApps_

Hi there, @Daniel Hong ! You are right, creating a child ticket for every single item number is definitely not scalable, especially when events can have 12+ items.

Natively, Jira doesn’t offer a great way to handle multiple free-text entries in one field. You could use a text area field, but there’s no structure - just a block of text with no way to track individual items.

One option worth looking at is our solution Smart Checklist for Jira. It lets you add feature-rich checklists directly inside Jira issues, where each item can have its own line. Your team could paste all the item numbers for an event in one go, and they will be automatically organized as a batch of individual checklist entries. Then, your team can check them off as they’re tracked or processed.

Here’s an example of a smart checklist. This one is for Vendor risk assessment, but it can be for any use case.

Smart Checklist - Vendor risk assesment.png

The nice thing is that everything stays inside one ticket - no child issues needed. You can add or remove items on the fly, and each one has its own status, so you track each item number through stages like ToDo / In Progress / or your custom statuses.

A few features that might be useful for your case:

Headers and grouping - organize items into sections if you need to split them by category, location, or promotion type
Tagging and mentions - tag team members inside the checklist so everyone knows who handles what
Deadlines - set due dates on individual checklist entries to keep the timeline clear
Progress tracking - with a progress bar on the top, you can see at a glance how many items out of the total are completed
Save checklists as templates to reuse them later for recurring events with the same items

I hope this helps! Feel free to reach out if you have any questions.

Kim Korton

I also have the same question, because I have run into similar situations where one record needs to be associated with several item numbers, but creating a separate child record for every item quickly becomes difficult to maintain. A field that allows users to manually enter multiple values in one place sounds like the most straightforward approach, particularly when the number of items can vary from one event to another. The main thing I would be curious about is whether there is a native field type that supports multiple manually entered values while still keeping each item number distinguishable for reporting, searching, and automation. A simple text field with comma-separated item numbers might work from a data-entry perspective, but I can see potential problems later if the individual values need to be filtered, validated, or used in workflows. This is somewhat similar to how a Starbucks calorie calculator might need to handle several custom selections or modifications while still keeping the individual values distinguishable for the final nutritional calculation. You can check here https://starbuckscaloriecalculate.us/ A multi-select field could potentially be another option if the item numbers are known in advance, although that may not be practical if new item numbers are constantly being added or if users need to enter arbitrary values.

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