Is there a way of prompting for a comment when a custom field is changed?

[Ed Parker]

Within our service desk we use the Queue field to control which queue the ticket resides in.  We have an problem where users are moving tickets between queues without adding a comment as to why.  Whilst you could say this is a training issue, I was wondering if there is a way for Jira to force this behaviour?

Thanks
Ed

[Walter Buggenhout]

Hi @Ed Parker,

There is no way to enforce a comment when a custom field changes. However, there is a feasible workaround to this.

Assuming that moving a ticket to a queue is part of your triage process, you could build this into your ticket workflow. When you make this part of a workflow transition, you can use a transition screen and a workflow validator to make sure a comment is filled out during that transition.

In a nutshell, the process would look somewhat like this:

• New issues are all created in the same status, let's assume NEW
• Make sure the next status is your workflow would be TRIAGED
  • In the transition from new -> triaged, make sure there is a transition screen that has the custom field in it that you use for your queues;
  • set up a required fields validator for that field on the transition and also require a comment on transition. These will make sure both must be provided to move into the triaged status.
• Modify your queues (if necessary) so they pick up issues that have been triaged properly

Also, make sure that the custom field for triaging is not on the edit screens in your project. If it is, that would bypass the above workaround.

Hope this helps!