10 Ways to Add Checklists to Jira Issues

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Checklists are simple, but powerful tools that allow you to organize work on an issue, follow agile processes and ensure compliance. 

Full featured checklist go beyond simple tick-boxes by integrating with your workflows, Jira automation, JQL, etc.  I am with the team behind Checklist for Jira, the leading checklist app in the Marketplace, and I wanted to share some of the many ways you can add checklists to issues.

Jira Automation: The Smart Way to Add Checklist to Issues

Automation is without a doubt one of the coolest things about managing your work in Jira. Checklist for Jira creates custom text field which can be synced to the content of your checklists. This means you can add a checklist as easily as you can update a field.  

To add a checklist to a Jira issue with automation:

1. Ensure the Save checklist data to Jira custom fields setting is enabled

2. Select the Edit issue automation action and Checklist Text as the field to be edited.

3. Paste your new Checklist items into the checklist text field.

That basic recipe unlocks a range of possibilities using adding checklists with Jira automation. You can:

• Add/change a checklist on the issue transitioned trigger to spell out the steps that need to be taken in each status of your Jira workflow.

• Append checklist items by using the smart value {{issue.Checklist Text}} to refer to the current content of the checklist

• Use the Field value changed trigger and if / else statement to add a specific checklist depending on the value selected for a given field

Note that along with using automation to add checklists to Jira issues, you can also have automation take certain actions when a checklist becomes complete or incomplete. See the automation examples here.

Add Checklists via a Jira Workflow Post Function

A post function allows you to automatically add a checklist to issues at a specific point in your workflow. Copy a checklist onto your clip board. Login as a Jira admin, navigate to the workflow and click on the appropriate transition. Select Post functions and Add post function, then select Update Issue Custom Field. Choose the Checklist Text field and paste in the checklist from your clipboard. A checkbox below allows you to indicate if you want the newly pasted checklist items to be appended to any existing checklists. Don’t forget to publish the draft workflow when you’re done.

Add Checklists to Jira Issues / Tickets in Bulk

If you want to add a checklist to a set of Jira issues or JSM tickets you can save time by doing a bulk operation. Copy a checklist onto your clip board. Use JQL to select the appropriate issues. Then click on the … menu in the upper right corner to bulk change all issues. Select the Edit operation and Change Checklist Text field. This will allow you to paste the checklist into all of the selected issues.

Copy & Paste a Checklist into a Jira Issue

You can copy and paste checklists between Jira issues, or copy a checklist from an external source (website, WORD doc, etc.) and paste it into an issue.

To copy/paste a checklist between issues click on the …menu of the checklist UI of the source issue and select Copy checklist. Navigate to the target issue, and click the … menu and select Paste checklist. The item input field will be highlighted in blue. Paste the entire list from the clipboard into the input field, and hit return.

Similarly, to paste a checklist from an external source, copy it to your clipboard. Then paste it into the checklist item input field of the issue and hit return.

Add a Checklist Template to a Jira Issue

If you want to reuse a checklist on other issues, you can save it as a checklist template. To add a template to an issue, click on the …menu of the checklist UI and click Load templates. Then select the template you want to apply to the issue.

Add Checklists to Jira Issues Manually

The simplest way to add a checklist to an issue is type items in the Checklist UI. When you hit return, your item will be added to the list.

Create Jira Issues with Checklists

Along with adding checklists to Jira issues, there are several ways to have checklist is automatically included when new issues are created:

Jira Automation: Add Checklist on Creation

You can use Jira automation to add checklists when issues are created:

• Trigger: Issue created

• Condition: Add any needed conditions

• Action: Edit issue – Edit the Checklist Text field

Set Default Checklist Template

As described above, one way to add a checklist to an issue is to load a template. But you can also set a template as a default for a given issue/request type. In this case, the template will be automatically add when the issue is created.

If you want to include more than one checklist template on newly-created issues, use a Jira automation rule to add the second template.

Clone Issue with Checklist

You may want to clone an existing issue that has one or more checklists. Any local checklists on the source will be cloned to the new issue. Depending on your cloning method, you can have the clone the checklist with all items marked incomplete, or you can sync that completion state of checklist items between the two issues.

Apply Global checklist to an Issue

If you’re using Checklist for Jira (Enterprise), newly created issues that meet the context of a Global checklist will automatically have the Global checklist applied. Any changes made to the checklists will also immediately be applied. This is a fool-proof way to ensure up-to-date checklists are included on issues.