Formatting of Paragraph Custom Field Filled with Automations Resets When Edited

Youssef Soliman

I have a free text field in a JSM form, which is linked to a Jira Custom Field (paragraph type). When the request transitions to a certain status, I set up an automation to attach a JSM form to the request, with prefilled text. The goal is for the customer to review the prefilled information and edit it if needed before submitting this newly attached form. 

Problem: whenever the user (customer) edits the prefilled text, all the lines collapse into a single paragraph. 

For example, this could be the prefilled text with the automations:

Dear customer,

Please review the following information and update as needed.

1. some info 
2. some info 
3. some more info

Thank you,
Agent

and this is what happens as soon as the user (customer) starts editing the text:

Dear customer, Please review the following information and update as needed. 1. some info 2. some info 3. some more info Thank you, Agent

 Any guidance is appreciated. 

Arkadiusz Wroblewski

Hello @Youssef Soliman 

The important detail is that your Jira field is a Paragraph field, so it is a rich text field, not just a plain multiline text box. In Jira Cloud, text area custom fields are stored as ADF / rich text structure. When your automation is prefilling that field with a simple text string plus line breaks, that is not quite the same as writing real rich text content.

Once the customer starts editing it in the form, the editor can normalize that content and the manual line breaks get flattened into one paragraph.

Seen that already couple times.