Best Practices for maintaining Custom Field namespace?

[Jor Bratko]

We have several departments using our JIRA instance and their workflows and screens can be very different from each other. How do we keep the Custom Fields from becoming a confused mess as each department adds their own flavors of Due Date, or Issue Category, etc.?

Can we use Field Configurations to help segregate Custom Fields?

Should we strive to reuse Custom Fields and reconfigure them for different projects rather than create entirely new Custom Fields in order to present a different set of items in the pull-down menu?

Any other ideas?

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist- · Accepted solution]

By far the best option is getting them to share fields. This simplifies cross-project reporting, is more consistent for users who move departments, keeps admin obvious and easier, and helps reduce load on the server.

I once inherited a Jira with 40 pairs of "start date/end date" fields. Merging it down to one single pair was really well worth it, both for admins and the users.

The best ones to reuse really are the system ones - encourage your users to use components, labels, due date and so-on