The Purpose of Forms

[Jeremiah]

I've been trying really hard to understand why we would want/need a form attached to a form (JSM Request Type). It doesn't make any sense to me. What problems is this solving? Why wouldn't you just create a Request Type with all the necessary fields in the first place? 

Does anyone have an actual use case scenario where Forms solve an issue you were having?

[Rodney Dsouza _Atlassian Certified Expert_]

A couple of reasons:

1. The advanced/Proforma Forms give you options such as dependencies between fields, including hiding/showing fields depending on how the user answers previous questions.  It also allows for better layout such as multiple columns

2. If you want to reuse work across different Request Types, then you could reuse Forms.  This is similar to the Don't Repeat Yourself (DRY) principle in Software Engineering.

There are probably a few other reasons as well.

But sure, using Forms in this adds a bit of complexity to the configuration.

[Jeremiah]

I didn't know it had conditional fields. That's neat.

It still feels like a system they've introduced on top of their existing forms system because they either couldn't figure out how to create the same type of functionality and/or it was going to be too time consuming to expand.

I'm curious as to what the future holds for Jira with two forms systems living side by side. 

[Rodney Dsouza _Atlassian Certified Expert_]

Atlassian purchased a Marketplace Vendor that already had the functionality - the App was called "Proforma".   Sometimes it is easier, and faster, to add functionality by acquisition vs coding yourself.

[Vijay Dadi]

The dis-advantage i see here is, when an Issue is created from Portal, the form works perfectly.

But when the issues are created via JSM screen, the attached forms are not shown while creating a issue.

If they fix this issue, that will be a ball out of park !

[Elena Lurye]

I use it for dependencies and formatting - the same way @Rodney Dsouza _Atlassian Certified Expert_ mentioned.

You can also add some elements from Confluence page formatting options - tables, info panels, links, and so on.

To display specific fields conditionally - use sections. 
Once you start using the forms, there is no coming back :)  - except if you need to display cascading fields (it is not supported yet).

Another advantage of forms - is that you can build your request forms without using custom fields. You don't HAVE to create custom fields in order to build a request form.
I would still recommend you add your fields and link them to the form fields, as this will enable you to report on them.
But, if you don't need to report on them or have any records on their values, you can just use form fields. This speeds up your request form creation.

Hope you will enjoy using them! 

[Jeremiah]

Interesting! Thanks for chiming in. Follow-up question, if you don't link a field to the Request Type field, can you access the information inside of the field; say for an automation?

[Elena Lurye]

Unfortunately, no. If you don't have a custom field linked to the field present in the Form, you can't do anything with it - use it in JQL, in reports, in automation. It kind of doesn't exist, except it is displayed on the request, where you can view it

[Tankem Williams]

We can safely compare Atlassian Proforma purchase to Elons Twitter Purchase ;)

[Jeremiah]

Ouch.