Search for issue - custom field

[Svenn-Roger Sørensen]

Hello everyone,

I have a use case where my users want to search for issues in Jira Service Management by using the content of the comment field (specifically internal notes). However, it seems that the Queues search input does not support searching within the comment field directly.

To address this, I tried creating a custom field named "Lastcomment", and set up an automation rule to copy the text from the comment field (internal notes) into this custom field whenever a comment is added. While the custom field updates correctly and I can find the issue via Enhanced Search, the search functionality in Queues still doesn't return results for this field.

My users find Enhanced Search too advanced and want to use the simpler search input in Queues.

I've also read that re-indexing the project might help, but the documentation I've found references configurations that seem to no longer exist in Jira Cloud: Search Indexing Documentation

Questions:

1. Is it possible to make the Queues search input search in custom fields like Lastcomment?
2. If not, are there any workarounds or alternative approaches to enable this functionality in a user-friendly way?

I’d appreciate any guidance or suggestions!

[Manon Soubies-Camy · Accepted solution]

Hi @Svenn-Roger Sørensen and welcome to Community!

Do you know what specifically they are searching for in the internal comments? It could help us suggest workarounds, for example:

• If they're commenting "to be reviewed by Anna", then you might want to create a new "Reviewer" user picker field.
• If they commenting "need help", then you might want to create a new escalation status, or use a dedicated label, or flag the ticket.
• If they're looking for guidance in troubleshooting a new ticket, the queues may not be the best starting point, and using the standard Jira search or documenting in Confluence pages could be more helpful.

- Manon

[Svenn-Roger Sørensen]

Hi Manon,

Thank you for your response and suggestions. To clarify, the requirement is more technical than based on specific comment content. Here’s the situation:

1. What users are searching for:

   • Users want to search for text that is present in the internal comments of an issue. These comments can contain troubleshooting notes, instructions, or discussions that are not captured in other fields.

2. What I’ve done so far:

   • I’ve already created a custom field called Lastcomment and set up an automation to copy the text from the comment field into this custom field.
   • The custom field updates correctly, and I can search for issues containing specific words in this field using JQL (e.g., project = "Lønn" AND "Lastcomment" ~ "searchword").
   • However, this field does not appear to be searchable through the Queues search input.

3. The core question:

   • Is there a way to make the Queues search input capable of searching within a custom field like Lastcomment, or is this functionality limited to JQL and Advanced Search?

I appreciate the examples you’ve provided, but I’d like to focus on whether or not Queues can be configured to support searching within custom fields. If not, I’d love to hear if anyone has successfully implemented similar functionality in another way.

Thanks again for your help!

[Manon Soubies-Camy]

Thanks for clarifying! Queues only support searches on Summary and Description for now, but you can watch and upvote this feature request: Allow queues to search on other fields besides summary and description.

I would recommend explaining to your team how to go to the regular Jira search, and how to use it. You could also add a shortcut in the project sidebar, if they find it easier than going to Search > View all issues.

[Svenn-Roger Sørensen]

I appreciate the explanation and the suggestion to upvote the feature request. I'll also look into adding shortcuts to help my team navigate the regular Jira search more easily.

Thanks again for your help!

[Hannes Obweger - JXL for Jira]

Hi @Svenn-Roger Sørensen

welcome to the community!

To the best of my knowledge, the search within queues is relatively limited. It appears like it might primarily (only?) be considering an issue's summary, but I'm not 100% sure.

I don't know if this problem justifies additional tooling for you, but just to put it out there: If you're open to solutions from the Atlassian Marketplace, you may want to have a look at the app that my team and I are working on, JXL for Jira.

JXL is a full-fledged spreadsheet/table view for your issues that allows viewing, inline-editing, sorting, and filtering by all your issue fields, much like you’d do in e.g. Excel or Google Sheets. It also comes with a long list of so-called smart columns that aren’t natively available, including the last comment, last internal comment, and many, many more.

Plus, its sheet search considers all visible fields and columns, including the last (internal) comment.

This is how it looks in action:

As every sheet in JXL is powered by a JQL statement or filter, you can easily model your queues as JXL sheets. It also allows cross-project queues, if that's something you'd be interested in.

I should also add that JXL can do much more than the above: From support for configurable issue hierarchies, to issue grouping by any issue field(s), sum-ups, or conditional formatting.

Any questions just let me know,

Best,

Hannes