Hide a Work Type from Create Screen While Retaining Existing Issues

nboreddy

Hi Community,

We have a Jira Cloud test project with the following work types:

• Project
• Task
• Feature

There are currently around 15 existing issues for each work type.

Requirement

We want to stop users from creating new Feature issues, but we need to keep all existing Feature issues intact.

Expected Outcome

• Feature should no longer appear in the Work Type/Issue Type dropdown on the Create screen.
• Users should not be able to create new Feature issues.
• Existing Feature issues should remain:
  • Visible
  • Searchable
  • Editable (based on existing permissions/workflows)
  • Unaffected in any way

Constraints

• We do not want to delete or migrate existing Feature issues.
• We would like to make this change with minimal impact to the project configuration.
• This is a Jira Cloud project.

Question:

1. What is the recommended approach to prevent users from creating new Feature issues while retaining existing ones?

Any guidance or best practices would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you!

Sami Shaik

@nboreddy ,

Short version: in a company-managed Cloud project there is no native switch that hides a work type from Create while keeping it in the scheme. The only thing that removes it from the dropdown is removing it from the work type scheme, and Atlassian’s scheme docs are explicit that you “will be automatically prompted to use the wizard whenever you’re removing an existing work type”, which migrates your 15 Features to another type. That breaks your first constraint, so rule it out.

What you can do, in order of impact:

1. Block creation with a workflow validator (recommended). Give Feature its own workflow in the workflow scheme (copy the current one), then on the Create transition add a Permission Validator set to Administer Projects. Anyone who is not a project admin picks Feature, fills the form, and gets a clear error on submit; admins keep the door for exceptions. Existing Features are untouched: validators run only on the transition they sit on, and the rest of the workflow is identical. Native, reversible in two minutes, no app. One honest limit: Feature still appears in the dropdown; it just cannot be used.

2. Make the dropdown tell the story. Rename the type to “Feature (retired)” and update its description with the reason and the replacement type. Renaming changes nothing on existing work items or JQL (type = "Feature (retired)" still finds them, and issuetype IDs do not change). Combined with step 1, users stop picking it within a week.

3. Set the scheme’s default type to Task so Feature is never the pre-selected option on Create.

What I would not do: a Field Required validator on a field that is not on the Create screen. It blocks creation too, but the error message blames a missing field and generates tickets to you.

Validate step 1 on a test project first: create a Feature as a non-admin and confirm the error text reads the way you want before you point the real project’s workflow scheme at it.