Support WAS and CHANGED operators for the issuetype field in JQL.

Question

Title: Support WAS and CHANGED operators for the issuetype field in JQL

Description:

Currently, JQL's WAS and CHANGED operators only work with a limited set of fields (Assignee, Fix Version, Priority, Reporter, Resolution, Status). The issuetype field does not support these historical query operators.

Use Case:

In our project, several issues were originally created as "Task" and later bulk-changed to "Test" (or other types) by a project admin. There is no way to find these issues using JQL. We need to audit which issues had their type changed — for traceability, compliance, and process improvement purposes.

Expected Behavior:

Queries like the following should work:

* issuetype WAS "Task" AND issuetype = "Test"

* issuetype CHANGED FROM "Task" TO "Test"

* issuetype CHANGED BY "user" AFTER "2025-01-01"

Impact:

* Teams managing test traceability (requirements → stories → tests → bugs) cannot track type conversions

* Admins performing bulk type changes have no way to verify or audit what was changed

* Regulated industries (energy, medical, automotive) need this for compliance audits

Workaround (current):

The only option is to iterate through individual issue changelogs via REST API, which is impractical for large projects.

Tomislav Tobijas · Answer

Hi @Singh_ Rahul_ENG_ ,

Is there any particular question around this?

If we're talking more about the feedback for the function itself (to be expanded), there's this feature request related to CHANGED function: JRACLOUD-30663: CHANGED JQL for built-in custom-field types and ALL JIRA's Field 👀

I didn't manage to find a specific one for WAS function, but you could take another look to see if there's anything else out there. 
What you (or your Jira admin) could do is reach out to Atlassian Support and explain your requirement. Maybe they have this request in their internal backlog already and will be able to provide some additional insights. 👈

And yeah... I'd say the main workaround here would be REST API changelog 🤔
Or, you could maybe build automation which would monitor these changes and add them into, let's say, a paragraph field for custom 'auditing'.
Alternatively, some Marketplace apps might cover this as well, but I haven't explored that part much.

Cheers,
Tobi

Gor Greyan · Answer

Hi @Singh_ Rahul_ENG_

Thanks for the question.

At the moment, issuetype does not support the WAS or CHANGED JQL operators, and Atlassian has already tracked this as a Cloud feature request, but it is closed as Won't fix.
Find it here.
https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/JRACLOUD-60707

I can suggest two workarounds.

Use the Jira REST API to retrieve the issue changelog and identify issues whose issue type has changed. While this requires additional processing, it provides the complete history for audit purposes - which you have already used.

Track issue type changes proactively. For example, use Jira Automation to copy the previous issue type into a custom field before it changes. That custom field can then be queried with standard JQL for reporting and compliance purposes. You can use a scheduled trigger, for example.

Enric Font_9rmi2h · Answer

Dear @Singh_ Rahul_ENG_

A workarround:

Create a custom field such as Previous Issue Type or Original Issue Type, then use automation to populate it before or when issuetype changes.

Automation:
WHEN Issue type changes
THEN set Previous Issue Type = {{fieldChange.fromString}}

You could also store richer audit info in a multiline custom field:

Issue type changed from {{fieldChange.fromString}} to {{fieldChange.toString}} by {{initiator.displayName}} on {{now}}.

This gives you future JQL options like:

"Previous Issue Type" ~ "Task" AND issuetype = Test

Another option is to create another customfield "Issue Type Change Audit" and append:

{{now}} - {{initiator.displayName}} changed issue type from {{fieldChange.fromString}} to {{fieldChange.toString}}