New Forms AMA: Got questions about the new forms in Jira Service Management?

[#1]

UPDATE Feb 3rd at 5PM: Thanks again to everyone who participated in this AMA about the new no-code/low-code form builder in Jira Service Management Cloud. Simon Herd (Product Manager) and I recorded a video to answer your questions and we’re adding answers from the transcript of the video as replies to the original questions in the comments below. Enjoy! ~Peter

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Hi Community!

We’re running an Ask Me Anything (AMA) about forms to help get everyone started with the new no-code/low-code form builder in Jira Service Management.

This is your chance to ask all of your form-related questions to our product and marketing teams. The hosts of this AMA include Simon Herd, Senior Product Manager for Forms, and myself, Peter Preston, Senior Product Marketing Manager on the ITSM team.

How this AMA works

1. Add your questions below any time until 5pm PST on February 2, 2022

2. At that time, Simon and I will review the questions and record a video to answer as many as we can in 30 minutes

3. The video and transcript will be posted here in Community

4. Any questions we can’t answer in the video will get a response in the comments

We’ll post the video and transcript at 5pm PST on February 3rd.

Click the Watch button below this post to get notified when we share the video, publish the transcript, and start answering questions in the comments.

3, 2, 1… Go! Ask your form questions below!

We’re going to answer questions in the order they’re submitted, so if you’d like to hear Simon and I answer your question (and riff off one another) get yours in now!

Add your question in the comments below 👇

[Calogero Kalos Bonasia]

@-.-

[d_kirsching]

@Peter Preston Do we know or do you have a planned date for the Insight Asset custom field integration ? Thx.

[Bill Goetz]

@Peter Preston Q1: For those of us migrating from on-prem ProForma forms, is there a roadmap for getting those forms into JSM Cloud forms? The ProForma marketplace app for Cloud is no longer available for install.

Q2: What are some of the automation rules for forms do you see implementing this year?

[k.lamontagne]

Can form fields be read by Jira Automation?

Edit: The article "Forms Use Case: New Employee Orientation for HR teams" states:

At the time of this post, form automation has not been released. We are working on an integration of forms with Automation for Jira that will enable you to recreate this use case and other similar workflows. We’re sharing this now so you can see what’s possible when the ability to leverage automation and forms is available.

[Jimmy Seddon]

Hi @Peter Preston!

Thanks for taking some time to answer these.

I was hoping to use forms to provide a multiline rich text template that would eventually be copied over to the description field, however it doesn't look like there is a way to provide a multi-line rich text default value.

Do you know if there are plans to include something like this in the future?

Thanks!

[Jan Faißt]

Are you planning to give projectadmins the option to implement Forms to the Create Issue Screen?

[Johan Söderström]

Do you have any plans to combine forms fields with native Jira fields e.g. attachments? Today, one is before the other which might not be the natural order to fill the forms. 

[Johan Söderström]

Forms fields is great but since it is not Jira fields you cant JQL and create reports in the same way. Do you have any plans to improve the reporting for Forms fields? 

[Matthias Ortner]

Will there be a function to capture signing on forms on mobile devices?

[Mitch Pabon]

Is there any way to add a form to a transition screen? For example, when a ticket transitions from one status to the next and a transition screen opens this would be a form instead of the normal screen, or be part added to that screen? 

[Gomez_ Daniel]

can you add cascading select custom fields to multi select dropdown field option in forms? I dont see my custom fields that are cascading select showing in linked jira field.

[Alex Romero]

Hi!
It's possible change forms´s status with scriptrunner or automation for jira?
Thank you

[Emma Dahlby]

Will you add the functionality to print forms directly from the issue view without having to download it?

[Jason Chave]

@Peter Preston is there a way to hide the forms on the issue view? Or if not, a way to not have the form already expanded when opening the issue?

[Peter Preston]

Q: I have a free instance of jira, can I try this new feature or is it only for those who have a paid license?

A: ProForma, or the native forms functionality is now available in all Jira Service Management instances. So it's open for everyone and that's where it will remain.

If you do have ProForma or ProForma Light installed you might not have the news form builder just yet, but we will help you migrate to the new experience at a later date.

Thanks @Calogero Kalos Bonasia !

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Q: Do we know or do you have a planned date for the Insight Asset custom field integration ? Thx.

A: We can't give you a date, but it's very much in the top three priorities for us to build.

We'll be building Insight integration as soon as we can.

Keep an eye on the Cloud Roadmap and in here on the community. We are in talks about starting a forms group on the community, so that would be a great place to come and ask questions and it’s where we'll be discussing what features are coming out as well.

Thanks, @d_kirsching  !

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Q: For those of us migrating from on-prem ProForma forms, is there a roadmap for getting those forms into JSM Cloud forms? The ProForma marketplace app for Cloud is no longer available for install.

A: Thanks, Bill, for the question. The answer to that is that the forms that you've built in server, when they migrated, they will just continue to work with the native forms application.

We have an entire team working on building support within the Atlassian app migration platform to support migration from server DC into Cloud. That all comes with all the other benefits of working with them in that framework. So stay tuned for that. I would hope that we'll have something out if not this quarter, definitely next quarter.

Thanks, @Bill Goetz !

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Q: What are some of the automation rules for forms do you see implementing this year?

A: Great question. There are a couple of changes that are coming. If you're in the ProForma app already we will decommission those automation rules and we're going to rebuild that functionality within Automation for Jira.

The key things that you'll be able to do with Automation for Jira is to trigger a rule when a form is submitted, which is gonna be fantastic. So you can use all of the advantages of automation based on when that form gets submitted.

The other one is you'll be able to do a check if a particular form or if all forms are submitted or if any of them are open, so you'll be able to build some more intelligence that way.

You will be able to add a full to an issue, and we're also working on allowing you to copy a form from one issue onto another which is fantastic if you need to work with multiple issues.

h/t @Bill Goetz

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Q: Can form fields be read by Jira Automation?

A: We recommend that if you need automation to work on the content of form field, you link any of those relevant form fields through to custom fields.

It's the most reliable way to make sure that your rules work the way that you want that.

Automation, if you want to get really technical, can go and read the form contents, but it's not recommended or officially supported. What will be supported in the future is when we can give you smart values that will be able to go in and draw out exactly the field that you want from a form. However, that's not implemented yet.

Thank you, @k.lamontagne !

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Q: I was hoping to use forms to provide a multiline rich text template that would eventually be copied over to the description field, however it doesn't look like there is a way to provide a multi-line rich text default value.

Do you know if there are plans to include something like this in the future?

A: Great question, Jimmy. This is certainly something that we intend to build and to offer not only some of those rich text, default answers, but also to allow for rich texts answers within the form itself.

It's on the backlog. We don't have an ETA on when we'll start work on it, but again, it's something that we've had quite a number of people ask us for.

Thank you, @Jimmy Seddon !

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Q: Are you planning to give project admins the option to implement Forms to the Create Issue Screen?

A: Getting forms into the global issue create screen is one of our top priorities. It's certainly something we will aim to tackle this year.

You can't do it at the moment, which is why we have the issue links or those direct links that you can find them under form settings. So, you can still create issues within Jira using a form. But very much, we want to put forms into global issue create.

Thanks, @Jan Faißt !

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Q: Do you have any plans to combine forms fields with native Jira fields e.g. attachments? Today, one is before the other which might not be the natural order to fill the forms. 

A: Our intention is that forms will be able to support every Jira field. So attachments, cascading selects, Insight fields, all of those fields that you can work with on a Jira issue or through the request type configuration.

All of them will become available with forms so that you won't have that mismatch or mixed up order of fields on the request create screen.

Thank you, @Johan Söderström !

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Q: Forms fields is great but since it is not Jira fields you cant JQL and create reports in the same way. Do you have any plans to improve the reporting for Forms fields?

A: This is something we've been hearing for a long time and it's also one of the great things about being within Atlassian that we can take advantage of all of the different teams working on different parts of the software.

Atlassian has an initiative called Data Lakes and you might have noticed that they acquired Chartio a while ago. The combination of data lakes and Chartio we think will provide a really excellent solution for reporting, particularly across multiple forms.

That's in the future and we don't have an ETA. But for now, where you do need to do reporting out strong recommendation is for those key fields to link the form field through Jira field so you can use JQL and you can trigger all of your automation.

It's also worth noting that you can export all of the responses to a form. You can just go to the forms list on the project settings and click the meatball menu and export as Excel.

For the native application, around March or April, you'll be able to use your advanced issue search to be able to export all of the forms along with custom Jira fields. And you’ll be able to retrieve that as either JSON or Excel.

So that should help with a lot of reporting solutions.

h/t to Johan again :)

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Q: Will there be a function to capture signing on forms on mobile devices?

A: It's a great idea! Can't wait to implement it.

We'll be looking into making our own solution, but for now legally binding signatures and mobile signatures remain as something that we want to support in the future.

Thank you, @Matthias Ortner !

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Q: Is there any way to add a form to a transition screen? For example, when a ticket transitions from one status to the next and a transition screen opens this would be a form instead of the normal screen, or be part added to that screen? 

A: The short answer is no, we can’t add forms to transition screens at the moment, but I'd encourage you to look at automation.

So if you use the example of an needing approval form filled out, use automation to add that approval form when the issue transitions to that Waiting for Approval stage, and then the approver can come in and fill out that form.

And to make life even simpler, when the approver submits that approval form, you can look at then using automation to transition to the next status.

So no to the transition screen, but we think you can achieve a similar result using automation.

Thanks, @Mitch Pabon !

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Q: Can you add cascading select custom fields to multi select dropdown field option in forms? I don't see my custom fields that are cascading select showing in linked jira field.

A: Cascading select custom fields aren't currently supported. Stay tuned. We're working on it.

We've got multiple teams within Atlassian working on forms at the moment. Supporting all of those standard Jira fields is absolutely one of our top priorities.

Thank you, @Gomez_ Daniel !

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Q: Is it possible change a form's status with scriptrunner or automation for jira?

A: Certainly we've had people do some amazing things with Scriptrunner in our forms, but no, it's not currently something that's easy to do with Automation for Jira.

Please let us know your use case. Let us know how you'd like to use that function because it's certainly something we could build in Automation for Jira. We just need to get a sense of what value it delivers to you and how many people a particular feature like this would help.

Thanks, @Alex Romero !

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Q: Will you add the functionality to print forms directly from the issue view without having to download it?

A: That's a great question! And it's one that I've never actually heard before.

Thank you for giving us something new and a great idea! Technically, yes, we could do that. It's just not on the roadmap yet. It's great to have a new idea and I'll certainly add it to our backlog.

Thank you, @Emma Dahlby !

[Matthias Ortner]

@Peter Preston @Simon Herd 

Thanks for your answers. Looking forward to use all that features. We use your forms a lot, it is really a great feature!
You asked to share our usecase. I would be happy to do that. Do you want to have a short call or should I try to describe our use cases here?

Are you going to share your prio topics or your proforma roadmap?

[tommy]

I found some documentation regarding "Data Connections" https://docs.thinktilt.com/proforma/Data-Connections.1571389861.html after seeing the option in the form builder -

  

It doesn't look like this option is available right now, do you have any information on when that would be rolled out? Thank you!

[Steve Pinto]

@tommy , Data Connections is working.  You need to create the connection in Settings / Issues / Data connections.  The problem right now, is the fields on forms can't be used with JQL and they aren't available through the API as far as I know.  This means, there's no way to programmatically get the data that's filled out on the form.  Because of this, we did a workaround.

• Created a custom field dropdown
• Populate the dropdown using the Jira Rest API
• Create a new field on a form
• Link the form field to the custom field

Now the field can be included in JQL and is accessible via the API

[tommy]

Alright, I've got another question :) 

Is there anything on the roadmap for a dynamic field input such as in a table view? For example, let's say the section is for addresses. It would be great to have a table with columns of (Street Address, State, Zip) that could handle 1-N rows being added.

We have a few use cases that something like this would be incredibly valuable for. I'd be happy to talk through them in more detail on a call if that's helpful!

[Peter Preston]

@tommy - interesting idea, allowing users to add fields as-needed. It's not possible to give users (aka people filling in the forms) the ability to do that right now. You could get similar outcomes by adding:

1. A radio question -- Would you like to add another address? Y/N
2. Conditional section with another set of address fields -- Only shows when Yes is selected

Cc: the product manager @Simon Herd for awareness. 

[Peter Preston]

@Matthias Ortner you can share here or shoot me a note at ppreston@atlassian.com :) 

[Michael]

When will the forms be available to be used with the Jira software create button? We use a feature within our service desks to create linked tickets for other service desks, but the forms aren't available. Currently, teams must log into the portal to create tickets, then go back and link them  

[Dirk Ronsmans]

@Peter Preston @tommy 

that would be fun little feature. I can especially see this work if you have like a shipping form or something.

Have a table style control where the end-user can add "boxes" as they need without having to pre-add the needed fields :)

[Peter Preston]

Hi @Michael - thanks for your question!

Forms for Jira Software is on our roadmap, but I don't yet have a date to share. If you're asking about adding form creation to the Create button, it's on the roadmap but I don't have a timeline for it either. 

[Michael]

@Peter Preston thanks for the update .   Ill keep an eye on the roadmap. Looking forward to seeing this