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How do you pre-populate the Description field for certain issue types?

cvanduyn

I'm a Jira Site Admin and I'm looking for guidance on the best approach to add boilerplate text to the Description field for newly created Bug issues in a specific company-managed project.

My goal is for users to see a template of text each time they create a Bug work item type in specific Spaces such as:

Steps to Reproduce
Expected Result
Actual Result
Environment

Is this an out-of-the-box Jira Premium capability or do I need to consider third-party apps from the Marketplace?

Accepted answers

Evgenii

Hi, @cvanduyn

You can use an automation to add a description template immediately after issue is created.
If you want to pre-populate field on issue creation stage - you need to use additional plugins, like ScriptRunner, for example

All comments

Evgenii

Hi, @cvanduyn

Monika Ambrozowicz_Seibert_

Hi @cvanduyn, Description Templates from Templating.app do exactly what you're describing. Full disclosure: I am affiliated with the team behind the app, but I use it a lot myself to achieve the same result.

You basically define a description template that automatically loads when a user creates a Bug in a specific project. So when someone opens the "Create work item" dialog and selects a Bug in your target project, the description field is already filled in with your structure. You can scope this to specific projects, specific work item types, or even specific users, so it only fires for Bugs in the projects you care about - it won't affect Stories or Tasks, or other projects.

Above you can see the end result, and the configuration is very easy. If you have any questions, I'd be happy to help.

The app is built on Atlassian Forge and also supports issue hierarchy templates, subtask and checklist templates, board and project templates if those are useful down the road.

Trudy P Claspill

Hello @cvanduyn

For a company managed project, without access to the ScriptRunner Behaviours or Appfire Live Fields apps, they only way to present prefilled text in the Description field when you open the Create dialog is (summarized):

1. Create a custom paragraph field and set its default value to your template text.

2. Add that field to the screen associated with the Create operation for the Bug issue type. Remove the native Description field from the same screen.

3. Ensure that the custom field is not on the screen associated with the Edit or View operations for the Bug issue type.

4. Ensure that the native Description field is on the screen associated with the Edit or View operations for the Bug issue type.

(So you need one screen to associate with the Create operation, and a different screen to associate with the Edit and View operations for the Bug issue type.)

6. Add automation triggered by creation of the Bug to copy the text from your custom paragraph field to the native Description field -OR- add post functions to the Create transition to copy the data.

The following posts describe the above solution in detail:

https://community.atlassian.com/forums/Jira-questions/Default-text-for-Description-field-on-Jira-Cloud/qaq-p/785597

https://community.atlassian.com/forums/Jira-questions/How-to-create-a-template-for-issue-description/qaq-p/1041636

https://community.atlassian.com/forums/Jira-questions/How-do-I-create-a-custom-template-for-a-description-text-input/qaq-p/2764424

D. Garcia

@cvanduyn Automation is the safest way to go because you'll be able to controll exactly what is populated, the Automation can be restricted to be only configurable by certain users and you will not incur in extra costs.

You'll spend some ramp up time learning Automation, but it is worth it as later you'll be able to do many other things.

Trudy P Claspill

@cvanduyn

I must disagree with the folks suggesting that Automation is the solution, if your goal is to show the template text in the Create Item dialog before the item is actually saved and assigned an item key.

Automation rules are triggered by events when the event completes, like when an item field is updated when a new item is created (when it is saved), and when an item completes a status change.

Automation can't be used to change what appears in the Create Item dialog before the new item has been saved.

If you want to change the Description after the new item is saved then an Automation Rule is the correct solution.

cvanduyn

This works! I prepended the boilerplate description text with the {{issue.description}} smart value to preserve any description that may have been added prior to creation from a form or screen.

Olga Cheban _TitanApps_

hi @cvanduyn !

For your use case, there is also an alternative option - you can create a Bug template with a dedicated app from the Atlassian Marketplace. With a tool that was designed specifically for managing issue templates in Jira, the setup can be more straightforward and simple.

I can recommend our solution Smart Templates for Jira. It allows you to save any work item (or a set of work items) as a reusable template. Once done, you can easily generate new work items with that exact structure from that template.

How it works in practice:

Create a Bug in your project, structure the Description the way you want it, then save the work item as a Smart Template. That's the full setup, done in a few clicks. You can also pre-fill other system fields like Priority, Components, Assignee, Labels, and Environment, plus custom fields.
Apply the template from the Smart Templates panel when creating a new Bug. You can also integrate it into a Jira Automation rule via a webhook if you want it to fire automatically on Bug creation in your target project.

One of the upsides vs the native automation approach is that anyone on your team can edit the template later on a dedicated Templates tab, without touching automation rules, smart values, or admin settings. You can also save a work item as a Global Template to share one Bug template across multiple projects, so you don't have to recreate it for every team.

I hope this helps!

Nar Kumar C_ - Narva Software

The only viable option to achieve this is using a Marketplace app, including ours: Issue Templates Pro for Jira

The automation option does not work in most cases because Jira automations are triggered on issue events. In this case, they are triggered after an issue (or work item) is created, so you won't be able to pre-populate fields on the create issue screen.

Here is a more detailed article on this topic: https://community.atlassian.com/forums/App-Central-articles/The-Ultimate-Guide-to-Issue-Templates-in-Jira-Description/ba-p/2870104

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