Project Number Tracking in Jira

[Swati Rastogi]

Am looking for some suggestions for tracking the project number.

Internally when the project is funded there is a unique project identifier created. It is recently implemented and wondering how to add it so it's easy to pull in the reports.

Wanted it to be on the details page but that page is not editable or shows in reports. or even if added with the project name, there isn't a simple way to pull that in the reports.

Anyone ideas for implementing something similar will be helpful. Thanks! 

Edit - It's in Jira Cloud

[Josh Costella]

Perhaps just use the project key as the unique identifier? 

[Elliot Reiter]

I agree with Josh to use the project key.  That is a unique value.  In all my years working in Jira, I never had the need to use the unique internal project ID, which is more useful if you are using API calls.

[Mykenna Cepek]

To confirm a few things...

1) When you wrote that you "Wanted it to be on the details page but that page is not editable or shows in reports", were you talking about the "Project Details" page (under "Project Settings > Details")? If so, I'm not aware of any customization that is offered there.

2) When you wrote "there isn't a simple way to pull that in the reports", I'm curious what reporting needs to include this Project Number?

3) Probably more important than "which reports?" is getting clarity on where this Project Number needs to be in the Jira Hierarchy. For example:

• Do you just need it at the "Project" level (not embedded in any issues)? In that case, @Josh Costella's suggestion for using the Project Key to store your Project Number might work. My concern there is that it might not look great, as the Project Key is a prefix for every issue in that project. Compare issue IDs: "ABC-123" and "XYZ-234" to a possible all-numeric "38243-123" and "38361-234".
• Do you need it only at the "Epic" level, for example? That can help with Roadmaps and certain high-level visibility. 
• Do you need this Project Number to be exposed for every issue? That might be necessary in a scenario where you're tying to align estimation or time-logged data against the issues in a project.

Understanding your answers to the above will help narrow down the best solution for your situation.

[Jeremy D]

The issue key allows 5 alphanumeric characters. If your internal project identifier fits this schema you are golden!

At a previous org we had project keys based on department. project kickoff year, and the project number (by each department resetting every year. So our naming convention looked like this:

Finance (F), HR (H), Sales (S), Marketing (M) Research (R), Technology (T)  |  Year (YY) | Project Number (00)

• F1901, F2001, F2002, F2003, F2101 
• M2101, M2102
• H2101, H2102, H2103
• etc

[Mykenna Cepek]

Jira Cloud allows up to 10 characters for a Project Key (I just checked).

I believe Jira Server and/or DC allows a maximum key length to be set.

@Swati Rastogi : it would help to know what version of Jira you are using (Cloud, Server, or DC).

Also, just for further reference related to Project Keys:

• Things to consider before changing a project key

• Server and DC enforce a leading alpha for Project Key naming
• It looks like Server and DC have a global config option for Project Key length - the default is 10, but can range from 2 to 255 characters (yipes!).
• Here's a thread discussing Project Key best practices.

[Jeremy D]

Really? Great. I was trying last week and it was only 5 in my demo instance. I wonder if that is a recent change or just something amiss in my environment.

[Mykenna Cepek]

In Jira Cloud it is a global setting for the instance. I believe it defaults to 10. So if yours is 5, that suggests that an admin likely reduced it from the default. Perhaps check with any other Jira admins at your site?

The setting is under "Admin > System > Options". The max is still 255 (don't do it!!!!)