Custom Project Key and Project Key Limitations

[Elizabeth.Johnson]

So I have a group that has a 200+ projects a year. These are not phases, they are each unique projects. 

* They have latched on to the PROJECT KEY being a way to help them distinguish projects. 

*I looked into it, and saw the information below, but then when I tried t his on cloud, I seemed to have a limit of 10 not 20.

*What are the limitations of the PROJECT KEY in JIRA Cloud? I cannot seem to find it spelled out like below. 

*Are we approaching this wrong, and what them not get hung up on the project key? 

*I did encourage them to think of good project names, but I think its because when they open a ticket they see ABC-123 they want the "ABC" to make sense. 

Any help/thoughts/guidance appreciated :)

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Regarding Project Key; information found here (https://confluence.atlassian.com/adminjiraserver/changing-the-project-key-format-938847081.html)

• regarding the project key 
• It is recommended that the key be as short as possible. It is not supposed to be descriptive, but rather recognizable and unique. The name and theme of the project can change over time. If the key is too well defined, it will point to the past and not the present.
• Ensure that you choose a supported project key format. Only formats that meet all of the following rules are supported:
  
  • The first character must be a letter,
  • All letters used in the project key must be from the Modern Roman Alphabet and upper case, and
  • Only letters, numbers or the underscore character can be used.
    Examples:
    • Examples of supported keys: PRODUCT_2013, R2D2, MY_EXAMPLE_PROJECT.  
    • Examples of unsupported keys: 2013PROJECT (first character is not a letter), PRODUCT-2012 (hyphens are not supported).

[Walter Buggenhout · Accepted solution]

Hi @Amrita Nair,

There's a couple of things about your request here. To answer your question first: if you are logged in with jira administrator permission, navigate to the Custom Fields administration section (Admin / issues / custom fields) and locate your Platform custom field. Click the cog icon at the right hand site and hover over one of the options in the actions list (without actually clicking it). At the bottom of your screen, a url will show up showing the ID of the field, which is what you're looking for:

A simpler approach, possible without admin permissions, would be to go to the issue navigator (issues / search) and try searching the different Platform fields. The custom field ID will show up automatically behind the name of the custom field when in JQL view.

A few additional remarks though:

1. The use case you describe is one you will not be able to realise. Even if you get the right custom field, your users will not be able to select the options from a dropdown. Quick filters are static, meant to be toggled with a simple click. So you will need to set up a separate quick filter for each platform to get what you're after.
2. From a best practices perspective, having 6 custom fields called platform in your Jira instance is something you want to avoid. Instead, by using a single field with different field contexts would avoid what you are currently running into. Have a look at custom field documentation and consider fixing this or point your Jira administrator to the matter!

[Amrita Nair]

Thank you! I could find the field ID. Yes, I have added multiple filters that check for specific platform values. Thanks again :)