How to unlock the category field on issue level

[Jeremy Schrijver]

Hi all,

I am relatively new working with Jira Work Management. We would like to make the category field of all issues in our JWM environment required, and add values beforehand for all users to choose from. Unfortunately, the category field on issue level is Locked? Does anyone know why and how to unlock it?

Thanks in advance!

[Trudy Claspill · Accepted solution]

Hello @Jeremy Schrijver 

Welcome to the community.

You cannot unlock fields that show that LOCKED lozenge. Refer to this article:

https://support.atlassian.com/jira-cloud-administration/docs/what-are-locked-custom-fields/

You will not be able to make that field Required by modifying the Field Configuration. You can configure your workflow transitions to require that the field be filled in, and it will then be checked during each status change.

Only admins can add values to the Category field in Work Management project, so have you admins set the values after the project is newly created. The non-admin users will then have the selection list of value to choose from. That will have to be done for each project. Refer to

https://support.atlassian.com/jira-work-management/docs/categorize-items-in-your-list-view/#Add-a-category

[Jeremy Schrijver]

Thanks for your help Trudy!