A new way to manage intake in Jira

[#1]

Atlassian Update 30 Jan 2025

Hi everyone, Thank you for your comments on my post. Forms have now rolled out to all customers in software projects as well as the other features listed in this article (excluding conditional logic for bundled release track customers). We will continue to invest in the Jira forms experience over the coming months - stay tuned for some exciting updates on this! In follow up to the feedback on Advanced Forms (aka ProForma), I just wanted to re-iterate that we will not be enabling this capability for business and software projects, as we aim to reduce customer confusion and streamline the form experience in Jira. I know that some of you will be disappointed with this response, but I hope this update provides clarity. Please continue to post feedback and requests on our public ticket here, this feedback will be one input into our roadmap for Jira forms. Thanks, Loretta (PM, Jira Cloud)

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Hi Atlassian Community,

Loretta here from Jira Cloud with an update that I am excited to share - we are bringing forms to software projects in Jira, as well as a number of other enhancements. These will make it easier to intake work from other teams or stakeholders - from ideas and feedback to requests for deliverables and specific project tasks. If a forms access is set to open, then anyone who can log into that Jira site can submit a form, meaning work intake can be extended to more stakeholders.

Forms exist in business projects today and by extending this to software projects, we will be closing the feature gap between the project types as we merge into one Jira to better serve all teams.

How forms will work in software projects

Forms will be available by default in the projects navigation, but will be available to toggle on/off in project settings by an admin. Only Jira and project admins (or users with project admin permissions) will be able to create, edit and delete forms. Forms will be available for all license editions.

Our designs below showcase our new navigation

All the features available in forms in business projects today will also be available in software projects, including:

• Access types: access to a form can be set to Limited (only those with access to create an issue in the project can submit a form) or Open (anyone who can log into the Jira site can submit a form).

• Multiple forms: there is no limit on the number of forms that can be created for a project

• Change a fields name: within a form, the name of a field can be changed to suit the context of a form. This change will apply to the form only and not to the issue configuration

• Embed forms: forms can be embedded into the Atlassian editor, such as into a Confluence page, for easy access by stakeholders

And there is more….

As we work on bringing this capability to software projects, our team has also been hard at work on a number of other enhancements. These will also be available in forms in business projects.

We are currently rolling out:

• Additional field support: we have increased the fields supported in forms to now include the Parent, Category and People fields as well as Sprint, Components and Version fields. Visit this page for a full list of supported fields.

• Field descriptions: within the form builder, a user can add a description to a field or question, to help submitters accurately complete the form.

• Required fields: if a field is required to create an issue in a project today, this will automatically be required on all forms in that project. We will also be adding the ability for a form creator to mark a field as required directly from the form builder. This will apply to the form only and not to issue creation from other sources within the project.

• Support epic level and above (L1+) issue types: currently, forms can only be configured to create any task level (i.e. Level 0) issue types within the project. We will be improving this, so forms can be set to create epic level and above (i.e. L1+) issue types.

In addition to these, we will also be introducing conditional logic in the coming months. This will enable specific questions to be displayed or hidden, based on the answer selected in previous questions. Conditional logic will be available for priority, single, multi select, checkbox and radio custom fields.

Please note that the below design is subject to change

We have no current plans to merge with the forms capability available in Jira Service Management and there will be no changes to any site which currently has these enabled for their Jira projects.

We will be rolling the list out to all Jira Software projects over the coming weeks. I’d love to hear any feedback or questions so please comment below!

[Aaron Pavez _ServiceRocket_]

This is wonderful news! Several posts are asking for this and this truly helps. Thanks, Atlassian!

[Tomislav Tobijas _Koios_]

We've been using forms within JSW projects for a while now with some, 'workarounds'. 😅 Glad to see this is finally officially rolling out!

[Bill Sheboy]

Hi @Loretta Brunette 

Thanks for this update and information!

There was a recent note on the release blog for JSM forms to better support smart values of forms / form fields in automation rules.  Will that change also apply to this rollout for software projects?

Kind regards,
Bill

[Loretta Brunette]

@Bill Sheboy - JSM forms and forms in Jira will continue to remain as two different capabilities, meaning releases will not align across both. I'd love to understand more about your use case and needs though @Bill Sheboy as we define future enhancements to Jira forms. Here is my calendly link if you can spare 30 mins to chat!

[David Washburn]

We use JSM forms on our software projects. It’s not available in the project UI but there’s a hidden URL that lets me setup a form using the JSM form builder and it creates issues in whatever software project we associate it with.

Will this new form builder inherit the existing forms we’ve made for our software projects, or is this a completely separate feature?

[Tomislav Tobijas _Koios_]

@David Washburn this was rolled out to my private instance and I can say I'll stick to the same way you're using JSM forms in JSW projects. These new forms are pretty much the same as the ones in business projects and there are no advanced configurations such as regex, layouts or conditional sections (yet - I just saw that it's coming within the next couple of months) 😕

At the moment, it looks only like a fancier way to intake data than the standard create issue screen with the option to set fields as required during creation without having to set a validator.

I was also hoping for JSM forms functionality rather than this but we'll see if this will improve in the future. 

[David Washburn]

@Tomislav Tobijas _Koios_ noted, thanks for the information. I can see it being interesting for some of our Engineering teams, but for more advanced form-building I suspect the current JSM forms will continue to be used by our team given your feedback.

[Loretta Brunette]

@Tomislav Tobijas @david - hello! the forms we are rolling out to software projects are separate to the forms available in JSM and the decision over which capability to extend was a careful one we made after exploring a number of factors. 

The main difference between the forms in business and software projects and the issue create screen is that:

- a forms access can be set to "open" meaning a user does not need project create permissions to submit a form (as long as they have access to the instance)

- field can be set as required on the form only (and not for the issue create screen or other inline create channels)

- a field description can be added to the form (and not reflected on the issue create screen)

Forms can also be embedded into the atlassian editor, such as a confluence page

I hope that helps!

Loretta

[Evon Yao]

Hi @Loretta Brunette this is very exciting to hear! Is there an ETA of when this will be available in PROD for JIRA Software cloud? 

[Loretta Brunette]

@Evon Yao - great to hear! we are in the process of rolling out to production at the moment so this will be available in the coming weeks (but it is also part of release tracks if your instance is enrolled with this)

[Stefan Draber]

Hi @Loretta Brunette 

this is great news, thanks a lot for providing forms also for software projects.

It would be even better if there'd be an option to open a form even for users without Jira access, like in the issue collector. Are there any plans to do this?

[Corey King]

Hi @Loretta Brunette can we expect Software Project Forms to be rolled out completely before Dec 1st?

[Sofia Grunspan]

When is this feature going to be implemented? so we can test it. Thanks! 

[Danno]

Woot! Sign me up. I've wanted to see this in software projects ever since they became available in the new business project format.

[JA]

@David Washburn or @Tomislav Tobijas _Koios_ Can you say more about how you accomplished configuring JSM forms to use in Jira Software projects? Where can I find the hidden URL? I'm trying to create a form that can attach to an Epic in Jira (not JSM) but not able to figure it out atm. I think what you mentioned in your original post is what I'm looking for. Any advice would be super helpful!

[Ashleigh Lodge]

Our primary use case for forms would be to do idea submission into Product Discovery, is that included in this release, or is it on the roadmap?

[Tomislav Tobijas _Koios_]

@JA you might want to check this question/thread: Can forms be added to a Jira Software project? 

[Shawn Stevens]

I can't wait for the conditional logic so we can stop using things like this: 

company.atlassian.net/secure/CreateIssueDetails!init.jspa?pid=value&issuetype=(id of issue type)&labels=(whatever you want)&summary=some summary.

We are setting Labels on this to act as our on stop intake process, but I like where Forms is heading. 

[Kristján Geir Mathiesen]

Hi @Loretta Brunette  I am so confused! We've had forms in Software projects for months or years. And these forms have conditionals sections and stuff. No?

I must be missing something here...  So sorry...

What am I missing?

Best, KGM

[Tomislav Tobijas _Koios_]

@Kristján Geir Mathiesen these were/are available through direct URLs to everyone. However, if you see 'Forms' in the settings menu on the left, someone from your organization might have reached out to Atlassian and their team could have enabled it for you. It was kinda an 'unofficial way' to get it there 😅

[Joao Zampa]

We have been using various workarounds to manage intake requests for teams utilizing Jira Software, but these methods have created significant challenges. Currently, we set up a Jira Service Management (JSM) project to take advantage of its landing page and facilitate communication between licensed and non-licensed users through the portal. We then automate the transfer of data from the JSM project to a Jira Software (JS) project.However, we face several pain points with Jira Work Management (JWM) forms:

• Licensing Requirement: Internal users must possess a license to submit requests, which limits participation.
• Clarification on Access: The phrase "Open (anyone who can log into the Jira site can submit a form)" raises questions. Does this imply that a license is still necessary? What constitutes "logging into the Jira site"?

To address these concerns, I have a few key questions:

1. License-Free Submissions: Can we enable internal users without licenses to submit tickets in either JSW or JWM projects using forms?
2. Communication Channels: Is it possible for licensed agents handling requests to communicate with non-licensed users who submit requests?
3. Form Accessibility: If a project contains multiple forms, will there be a centralized landing page for users to view all available forms, or will they need to rely on shared links?

Several teams are interested in utilizing forms within JSW or JWM projects; however, the licensing requirement, absence of a landing page, and lack of communication channels between licensed and non-licensed users have hindered their implementation. I would like to know if any of these issues have been addressed in recent updates or configurations.

[Rick Westbrock]

It baffles me that Forms for Software projects don't have feature parity with JSM forms right out of the gate. That implies a completely different code base which is odd.

[Ricardo_Gomes]

To me, this is all a workaround that still leaves a bad taste in the mouth.

Jira ticket creation should evolve to accommodate all these features, but instead Jira continues to be archaic when it comes to form dynamics (show/hide, visible/not visible permissions based on criteria, field variations (select lists with more levels, select lists with dynamic loading from JQL/API, select lists with more level and multiple choice, fields on-the-fly creation, fields sectioning positioning inside of frames, etc. etc. etc.), and this new form feature is just a way to confuse users by creating a separate way to intake data from users. 

It "kind" of makes sense in JSM because you can embed into the portal view of the tickets (although still very rudimentary), but this doesn't make sense in Jira Software. 

Requests to enhance fields and forms within the context of Jira tickets have never been tendered to in decades, and Jira still still uses the archaic web form/field implementation from the 90's. This is crazy to think about!

[Loretta Brunette]

@Corey King @Sofia Grunspan - this should be rolled out to all customers early next week, however is part of released tracks for customers enrolled in this

[Loretta Brunette]

@Joao Zampa hello, you are correct that even a form with open access still requires users with a Jira license to make a submission. If they have access to the site, they can make a submission.

In Jira Software and Business projects, a submitter must have a license, so a licensed agent will not be able to handle a request from an unlicensed submitter unless using JSM

Forms are accessible from a forms directory, accessed from the project navigation. The second image in my post above shows this.

Hope this helps