Creating and managing large lists

[Scott Windus]

Hi

I am exploring the capabilities of JSM for company-wide deployment.

A critical need we have is in relation to lists. The lists need to be manageable and will be lengthy. For example Roles, Departments, Application lists, Locations. A list may be used on one form or multiple and can contain hundreds of values. Ideally, list values would be able to be bulk imported into JSM. The UI for short lists is ok, but out of the question when talking about 50-200 values. The ability to export for analysis would also be useful.

I am an experienced Jira Software Admin and have created many single and multiple-choice lists, but these all have fixed values and are no more than say 20 items long. 

We are currently using Service Now and it uses a list database and the form list field looks up the database and returns the value (Reference Lookup style)

I need to be able to manage these lists, add new values and hide values, without deleting them, so they are still retained in previous form submissions but not available in new forms. 

Is this possible OOTB? If not OOTB, is there are add-on that does not cost the earth to achieve this?

Thank you

[Mikael Sandberg · Accepted solution]

The way I solved it is by adding those lists, like departments and locations, as objects in Insight (Insight will be part of JSM Premium plan soon). Another option would be to use an external database and use something like Elements Connect. At my previous company I used Elements Connect to create lists with up to 20000 entries (part numbers). 

[Scott Windus]

Thanks Mikael, I will see what options others have used. 

At this stage, it is not looking promising. Even the JSM HR template is designed using free text fields for user onboarding etc. This is a disastrous approach as even miss-spelling something like a Job Title or using a different variant, would make the submitted form redundant.. Imagine running a report or building automation off forms that use free text? Simple filtering and sorting would also fail.

For locations, I would need more than just a single name. I would also need other values like the locations address, phone number, location ID, Manager name etc. This is different from something simple like a job title list, but it's adding to my concerns regarding the capability of JSM.

[Mikael Sandberg]

So you best bet would be either Insight or Elements Connect. Insight allows you bring all that information into the ticket using just one field, if you go with an external DB solution you can have dependent field to be populated based on for example what location you pick. The part number solution I created allowed the user to search on the part number, and I had two other field that were showing the name and the cost based on what they selected.

[Scott Windus]

Thanks again Mikael, that certainly sounds like core functionality I would use.

[Laura Campbell _Seibert Media_]

Thanks for the app recommendation @Mikael Sandberg 

@Scott WindusIf you want to see how to set up the app in Jira Cloud with cascading select lists, check out this demo recording https://youtu.be/Z2rNS0ik46c?t=706

[Scott Windus]

Hi @Laura Campbell _Seibert Media_ 

I have watched the webinar from your link.

1. Does/will Elements Connect allow multi-level (3,4,5) cascading lists?
2. Is it possible to configure a list to be multi-select?

Thank you

[Laura Campbell _Seibert Media_]

Hi @Scott Windus 

To answer your questions, multi-level cascading lists are possible with dependent fields.

For the second question, mutli-select are not yet available, but our product manager Elyes is interested in learning more about your use case to help prioritize upcoming features on the roadmap. If you're willing to share your use case, you can pick a time that works for you directly from Elyes' calendar for a quick video call.