How to add a User Picker custom field?

Question

Hi,

I'd like to add a custom field which allows our QA Engineers to put their name against a ticket once it moves into Review status.

So the flow would be:

* Developer changes a ticket's status to Review
* Ticket appears on the dashboard of everyone in QA (via a status = Review filter)
* Whoever wants the ticket can jump in and add their name to a "In testing with:" field via a custom "User Picker" field.

Everything's fine except the custom User Picker field.  I've got it to appear when I create issues BUT unless I populate it with a user's name at that stage it's never available on any of my screens.

Using the various "Where's my field?" options I'm told that the field has no value so won't be shown on the screen I'm looking at.

But that's the point, the field won't have a QA Engineer assigned when it's created, the engineer will put his / her name against the ticket after a developer has put the ticket into Review status.

I just want an empty "User Picker" field available for later use, I don't want to have to put a name into the field when the issue is first created.

Anyone have any ideas?

Thanks,

Steve

Gregory Van Den Ham_2hc9n5 · Answer

You're on the right track, screens are the forms.  You can find the screens the project is using in the project settings, screens tab.   When you click on the screen it will show you the fields it has on it. At the bottom is the Add to to add the custom field to the screen.

Give it a little time and bang your head against the keyboard a few more times and you'll get there ;)

Steve Harman · Answer

Thanks @Gregory Van Den Hamthat's been a huge help.  :-)

The one remaining thing which I can't figure out is how to have my new custom field appear when viewing existing issues / tasks / stories.  It now appears fine when I create a new issue - complete with a default user thanks to your tip.

This problem is probably down to my ignorance of terms although tbh Jira isn't helping much.   For example when I use the "Admin > Where's my field?" from a Scrum task "form"  I'm told "The 'In Testing With' field is not present on the form you are viewing"

Which is fine, I could work with that information - except nowhere else in Jira can I find a reference for 'forms' (screens, views are these the same?) and - help me out Jira - instead of 'the form you are viewing' - could  you just tell me the name of the form instead?  That might get me on the right track.

Thanks again Gregory, at least your answer made sense.  :-)

Regards,

Steve

Gregory Van Den Ham_2hc9n5 · Answer

right, so null fields won't display on the issue screen unless you click edit to edit the issue.  Then the field appears for use.

We've found this a bit annoying as well in some projects, so to make the user experience a bit nicer for on screen quick edits we do the following:

Add a default value to the field.  For instance a "'" or "-" or a "hey populate me".