Sharing custom fields across projects - Team Managed Project

[Niki Woolston]

Hi there

I have some custom fields created in my Jira Workflow Management project (team-managed), that I want to utilise in another project but it doesnt seem possible. When I go to custom fields and search, my created custom fields don't even show up. 

I am able to utilise a custom field from another company managed project however - does it not work the other way round?

Thanks for any advice..

[John Funk · Accepted solution]

Hi Niki,

You can use shared fields now, you just have to initiate them like you would with a Company-managed project. 

You go to Settings > Issues > Custom Fields and create your custom field. Then add a context for it for each project that will be using the field, regardless of the project type. 

Then when you are in the Team-manage project, you click on the link at the bottom right below where you create custom fields to search for the custom field you created in the above manor. 

No, you will not be able to use the existing fields you have created in the Team-managed projects like that. But you can create the new one, and move the data from the current field to the new one. Then you can get rid of the current field. Just be sure to name them something different - at least at the beginning, so you can differentiate from them because Jira will let you create the new ones with the exact same name as the existing ones. 

[Fabrizio Tatti]

Is it possible to define context for the custom fields limiting it to a team-managed project?

At the moment, my company only useses team-manage projects but I can't find a way to define the context because the project does not appear in the context edit menu. 

If I want to use a custom field in different projects I can't think any other way but creating duplicates and change the global scoped context to fit each single project need, which is not ideal.

[John Funk]

No, because definition, the custom fields must be Global context to be used with Team-managed projects. 

[Trudy Claspill · Accepted solution]

Hello @Niki Woolston 

Correct, it does not work the other way around.

Custom fields created within Team Managed projects cannot be used in other projects. They are accessible only in the Team Managed project where they were created.

Custom fields the are created for use in Company Managed projects are created in a global location intentionally so that they can be shared.

[Niki Woolston]

Thanks for your answer - will this be possible in future? That's really limiting for us

[Trudy Claspill]

I can't say for sure what Atlassian intends to do in the future.

However, in my opinion it is unlike that custom fields created within Team Managed projects will become share-able. The intention of team managed projects is for them to be stand-alone so that customizations in one don't affect any others.

As John said, if you want to share fields between Team Managed project you will have to create those through the global Custom Fields option, where custom fields for Company Managed projects are created.