Is there a way to set a default value for html renderer fields in a kanban board type?

[Bruno Teles]

I would like to add a default description in issue fields (Bugs, User Stories, ...) in a Kanban project (company managed) but I am not being able to find where I can do this under Project Settings.

Just as a comparison, when you create a SCRUM project, you can go to Project Settings > Issue Types and then select any issue type (e.g. Bug), and set a default value for a Description field. I just want to be able to do the same for a Kanban project.

Is this feature available and where can I perform this action?

[Bill Sheboy · Accepted solution]

Hi @Bruno Teles -- Welcome to the Atlassian Community!

I do not believe that is possible yet with company-managed projects, as you describe.

The Scrum project you note appears to be a team-managed project, and those allow setting default values at a project-level.  Can you confirm if your Scrum project was team-managed?

There are work-arounds for company-managed projects to get defaults, but often a marketplace addon is needed for project-level default values/templates.

Kind regards,
Bill

[Bruno Teles]

Thank you, @Bill Sheboy

Yes, my other project is a team-managed SCRUM project. 

I could migrate from company-managed to team-managed teams, but I don't want to do that since it means I would be be losing data and config according to this reference.

Do you know any specific free marketplace addons that could do this specific task (in Jira Cloud)? I could find a couple of paid addons only.

Best regards,

Bruno.

[Bill Sheboy]

Hi, Bruno.

Sorry, I do not know any free addons for this.  And, I suggest searching in the marketplace as you may find one.

A built-in work around is to use an automation rule to create a "default" value.  One challenge with this approach is it makes issue creation a two-step thing:

• create the issue, and the automation rule will fire to add the default *after* the issue exists
• then you edit the issue to see the default and update, as needed

Kind regards,
Bill

[Bruno Teles]

Thank you, Bill! I will try to look for this addon then.

I tried exactly the same thing you mentioned before! I created this automation rule but I was afraid that would annoy some people, since it is not a great experience to find out later that the content you wrote was overwritten by the default value on event creation.

all the best,

Bruno.

[Bill Sheboy]

I agree the user experience is not great for that approach, and...

The fix to prevent clearing the field in an automation rule is to edit the description field like this:

{{issue.description}}

Here is my template for the field.
Data to enter: TODO
More data to enter: TODO

This will add the template information after what was already entered.

[Bruno Teles]

Well, I think that solves my problem then! Thank you so much for this!

Two things about this approach:

- If we include a text and image before the issue creation, the default text from the Automation Rule disappears. If we include only text, it works.

- It would be great if we could include HTML renderer content as the default text in the Automation Rule. ATM, it is only possible to include plain text.

[Bill Sheboy]

That matches my experience; there are still some issues with automation and which markup can/cannot be used for text fields.