Choose how you want to represent your work in Jira

[#1]

Hey everyone,

Following our announcement at Team ’24 combining Jira Software with Jira Work Management, we’ve been working relentlessly to make Jira the place of work for all teams. One of the many initiatives we’re pursuing to make this happen is refreshing how teams’ work is represented in Jira. That means replacing Issue with a new term that represents the work of all team types, including but not limited to marketing, sales, HR, operations, finance and legal teams, and not just software teams that Jira originally set out to do two decades back.

What is Issue being replaced with?

We’ve performed extensive research on what the replacement term should be. Of all the options evaluated, we have ‘Work item’ and ‘Task’ as the primary replacement candidates. We believe these two terms are broad enough but not too generic at the same time and can allow our users across different functions to model their work within Jira.

Below is an early view (well, read) of what it could view like:

On end-user experiences:

• Create issue → Create work item OR Create task

• View all issues → View all work items OR View all tasks

On admin experiences:

• Issue type hierarchy → Work type hierarchy OR Task type hierarchy

• Issue type schemes → Work type schemes OR Task type schemes

How to get involved?

Following plenty of research and several weeks of speaking to customers and Marketplace partners, we’re excited to expand this research to a broader audience and gather more insights from people like you.

We’ve developed a Chrome extension to enable you to try the Work item and Task terminologies in Jira. We’d love for you to try the two terms and share your insights with us so that we can better understand how you’d prefer your work represented in Jira. Your insights and participation will significantly improve the Jira experience for all users. In case your organisation has blocked the installs of extensions, please speak to your admin about enabling the extension from the Chrome Web Store. More on how to allow extensions.

Note: The extension is available for use in Chrome browsers only; we don’t support IE, Safari, or other browsers.

To use the new extension:

1. Download the extension from the Chrome Web Store.

2. Open the extension and select Add to Chrome.

3. Select Add extension and pin it to your Chrome browser to toggle between Issue, Work item and Task easily.

4. After you’ve selected a term, open your Jira instance. You should see the selected term replace Issue everywhere on Jira. Note that this only applies to instances set up in English.

5. If you already have Jira open in your browser window, refresh the page, and the new terminology should appear.

An important caveat is that the selected term will visually replace Issue everywhere, even in the summary and description of your issue. It, however, won’t be replaced in reality and will continue to show the original text (with issue) when you go into edit mode.

Please note that the way the new term is applied with the extension is not final and will change after a very careful review by our design team when it reaches GA.

Give us feedback

We want you to use Jira the way you usually do, and we intend to understand your usage and preferences for the replacement term. Given this is an experiment, you may encounter bugs or unintended behaviour. If something is confusing or not working out for you, you can quickly revert to the old terminology via the extension. When doing so, please remember to share feedback by clicking on ‘Give feedback’.

We’d love to hear about your experience using the new terminology in Jira. Share with us:

• Do either of the replacement terms seem like a natural fit in the product context

• What’s working well for you

• What’s not working well for you

• Any other comments or suggestions, no matter how minor

After you've enabled the Chrome extension, you can proactively give us feedback on the new terminology by selecting ‘Give feedback’ on the extension.

For anything else, please feel free to leave comments below, and we’ll get back to you soon!

Cheers,
Arbaaz Gowher
Product Manager, Jira

[Denis Boisvert]

Very good move forward. I always get questions on what "issues" means with people that are new with jira.

[Elena Lurye]

It would be nice to have this capability per project, not globally, as different teams would need to refer to the "issues" differently.

I would not vote for changing name to "task", as this name already in use as an issue type, and would create a confusion.

[Dave Mathijs]

I would just call it "Item". A "Task" is an item type, just like "Feature" or "Story".

It may not even be "Work" related ...

[Jeffery Candiloro]

Will this change be implemented in DC as well? Or just in Cloud? Which would mean we need to change our terminology when speaking with clients based on the environment they're in (or the age of their instance if if it is rolled out to DC).

[Jens Schumacher]

Terminology is really important for people’s understanding.

Jira Service Desk for example doesn’t have "Issues", it has “Requests”. Which made a huge difference in terms of understanding and user adoption.

"Work item" and "Task" would still limit Jira as a platform. Use-cases like a simple CRM wouldn't quite fit into that mold. 

I would encourage you to make the term fully customizable and create sensible defaults for different project types. 

With that being said, a term to describe the concept is still needed. That's where I agree with @Dave Mathijs that it should be as generic as possible. "Item" or "Object" would be great candidates for that term. 

[Cidoni Brind]

Item sounds generic enough. A story, task, thing, work, project (yep!), person - all could be "item".

I wonder what the AI tools would give as a suggestion! 

[John Funk]

Definitely a good move! Also, would suggest Item or Work Item as Task is a defined term in the Agile world already. If you go with a generic Task label, then you would lose the Task Work Item type and lose the Agile functionality. 

[Christian Czaia _Decadis AG_]

I agree with the latest comments. It has to be something generic (that ideally has to be translatable too! / don't forget the German speaking market. "Work (item) will not work :-) "). "Task" would stir up a lot of setups where a task is referencing an issue type (which is very common).

Not every "item" is a task either. That's the good part of having such a general term as "issue" at the moment since it could also be an idea, a suggestion, a poll etc. Neither of those "types" would be classified as a task, and neither a "work" item...

[Walter BUGGENHOUT]

From the options described, I am more with work item. While I can also relate to the even simpler item, I am afraid that would introduce confusion with other stuff you can create within the boundaries of the Jira platform - referencing Assets here specifically. Assets are items too, but they are of a different nature in more than 90% of the cases.

When you create something that is now is still called an issue, you tell people there is something they need to do. When you create an asset, this is something that is sitting somewhere that you can use or manipulate by doing something. I believe that still having the notion of an action or activity in the name of the next gen issue is quite valuable.

[Mike Harrison _The Plugin People_]

I think the best solution is to allow customers to call it whatever they want with a customizable name. Then, under the hood on the API just call it a work item or (I think better) work unit. However I would say going from 1 word to 2 isn't great... in every day conversation people are just going to shorten "work item" to "item" anyway so you might as well shorten from the start.

[Moritz Neuffer]

It should be something very generic, like 'Item,' 'Entry,' 'Record,' or 'Entity,' to keep it as broad as possible. As many others have already mentioned, Jira is also used for organizing "things" that aren't necessarily work items.

[Patrick van der Rijst]

I vote for Item as well. Task is already an issue type, not everything is a task, not everything is work.

[Stefan Ernst _Realigned_io_]

Some considerations:

• Existing users will have a hard time adjusting to this change (I still call Jira Service Management Jira Service Desk to this day)
• Third party documentation as well as AI models will refer to Issue Types, Issue Security Schemes etc. for years
• The API naming will likely not change, disconnecting the product and api naming
• Third party apps will refer to the old terminology (in product) for quite a long time, which leads to an inconsistent experience for end-users
• There are over a 1000 apps on the marketplace that refer to the old terminology, some even have brand names relating to "Issue"

[Andreas Krupp]

I love it. Little anecdote on that topic:

On of the founders of catworkx, Dr. Wolfgang Tank, wrote the first translation for Jira in German. At that time (over 20 years ago) he realized already that Jira is so much more than an Issue Tracker - hence, in the German Translation for "Issue" is "Vorgang" - which translates loosely to "Process", "File", "Dossier"... or simply, as my colleague @Moritz Neuffer pointed out: "Item".

[Peter Van de Voorde]

I understand what you're trying to do, but is this really a solution to the problem?

This feels like trying to solve an education problem with a branding solution.

People will always need time to learn how to use a product, just like they need to learn their way around in a new company, or any other new environment.

Wouldn't it be a better use of your time to build out educational and onboarding materials to help people get a quicker and better understanding of how Jira works?

Also: what's the impact of this going to be on all Marketplace Apps?
Or on the developer side of Jira (will all REST API's suddenly be renamed?)?

I'm honestly not a big fan.

[Sam Hall]

Does the Chrome extension work on Jira Data Center?

[Dmitry Astapkovich _Colined_]

And "Issue Navigator" would become ... ?

[Andrea Robbins]

In my opinion, we should just use the word, ticket as that's what issue was about all this time. It doesn't matter whether it's an idea in JPD, a request in JSM, or a Jira story/bug, they're all tickets.

This item term is super ambiguous - could a Confluence page or whiteboard be an item? Could a comment be an item? Could an attachment be an item? A person or team could be an item. With the Atlas stuff being integrated, goals could also be an item. Everything is an item if you think about it, which would make Jira terribly confusing. Like Item Security Scheme - are we securing projects, goals, teams? These could be items too!

Also, if item is implemented, please do NOT call it a work item - think about it - a problem in JSM or an idea in JPD isn't a work item - work can certainly stem from it, but it's a ticket that represents an idea or a problem. 

[Henri Seymour _Easy Agile_]

The words I've most heard folks use colloquially in place of issue are "a ticket" and "a Jira".

I don't think "ticket" is used for anything else, and it would probably be an easy transition for most people! 

[Aron Gombas _Midori_]

I vote for "work item". Very generic, easy to use for anyone (unlike "entity" or similar).

Task, idea, story, ticket, bug, epic, request, etc. are different types of work items.

(15 years ago I was working on an issue tracker system in some sense similar to Jira, in other aspects very different. In that product, in the same situation, we chose the term "tracker item" and our second preferred choice would have been "work item".)

[Nisha Hajamohideen]

Ticket should be the replacement term as people refer "ticket" to any issue they create in Jira.  All other terms may be used for any other issue types.

[David Vins]

Item, item, item. Items have many forms, be they tasks, issues, tickets, work, etc. Make it generic and free us from “issue” hell. Oh, and for the love of humanity, please add Gherkin to your code block support in description fields!

[Stanislav Shumlianskyi]

In my opinion, concepts like "item," "task," and "entity" will always overlap in one way or another depending on the situation. That’s why I believe Atlassian should consider creating an entirely new term, much like how the concept of "Jira" came to be. For instance, Atlassian could combine its name with the words we've discussed here. While I don’t have specific examples in mind, something like "Atem" (Atl + item) or "Antity" (Atl + entity) maybe could work, or even "Jira+item" or "Jira+entity."

Community has a great imagination, so I’m confident we could come up with something truly unique and memorable. Let's try 😊

Steve Jobs once introduced the iPhone as a revolutionary device that would replace all button phones by combining a phone, a music player, and a web browser into one. This approach could serve as a great example for Atlassian. Just as Jira once fundamentally changed the way project management is approached, a new term or concept that combines different elements — items, tasks, and entities — could set a new standard. This approach could either merge several functions into one solution or create an entirely new product category that "replaces" outdated methods.

[Dany HANANIA]

Finally !!! It is about time. We have been asking for this for years now.

Jira is being used by both business and technical team and such terminology should have been in place ages ago.

Thanks a lot for this. I know many of our clients would be thrilled to know this.

[Ahmed Nassar]

I would prefer to refer to it as "ticket," since that's the most commonly used term in tools similar to Jira.

Also will be familiar to colleagues and clients 😅

Actually most of the users know it as "ticket"