As more teams make Jira their home for work, we’re committed to improving the language in our tools to better reflect the diverse ways you define and manage your work.
Today, we’re excited to announce the introduction of work as the new collective term for all items tracked in Jira. We’re also exploring ways to incorporate the language you use for your own unique work types.
Jira was originally developed as a bug tracker, designed to manage ‘issues' – and for years, that’s how we’ve referred to the work teams track in our tools. But, as our products have evolved, so have the use cases they support.
Today, Jira serves a diverse array of teams, each with unique workflows. We believe that the true power of Jira lies in its flexibility to represent all kinds of work. We’ve heard from you that the term ‘issue’ can be limiting and somewhat confusing in the context of your work.
So, going forward, instead of referring to your work as ‘issues,' Jira will call the different items you track exactly what they are: work.
This update is more than just a simple find-and-replace. Through discussions with numerous teams, we've learned that you often have unique terminology for your work in Jira, and we want the tool to reflect this.
Just as today, you can still customize as many work types as you need to accommodate your team's language, workflows, fields, and automation preferences.
We’re extending that flexibility by making Jira smarter. Now, when you're working on a specific type of work, the interface will dynamically adjust to fit that context. For example, engineering teams see 'bugs' or 'stories,’ whereas Marketing teams may see 'launches' or 'copy.’
By aligning more closely with the work types you use, we aim to make Jira speak your language, whether you're a tech-savvy developer or a creative campaign manager.
When it's not possible to use your specific language or when we’re referring to various types of work collectively, we'll use the term work item.
We're continuing to explore ways to better integrate your language into Jira, and welcome any suggestions you may have.
Our team conducted research to determine how best to implement these changes across the various markets supported by Jira and to assess whether updates to the language were necessary.
As a result, the following languages will have updated terminology to reflect this change: Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional), Dutch, Finnish, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Portuguese (Brazil), Spanish, Swedish and Turkish.
All other supported languages will retain their current terms.
This update will be rolled out gradually, with work replacing ‘issue’ across all Jira Cloud products, including Jira Service Management and Jira Product Discovery, in early 2025. Updates in other products will follow soon after.
Apart from informing your teams, there's nothing you need to do in product to prepare for this update.
Given the scope of this change, there is a significant amount of material that needs updating. You may still encounter the term ‘issue’ in some of our experiences, documentation, and support materials as we work through these updates.
We welcome your feedback, comments and questions as we refine Jira's language to better align with the needs of all teams.
Note: We'll keep updating this FAQ to address any recurring questions or concerns.
Q. Why not use terms like ‘item,’ ‘record,' or ‘activity’?
While these are all valid options, our research indicated they can be ambiguous in what they represent. Our goal is to make Jira the place of work for all teams, and we believe 'work item' is a natural replacement for ‘issue,' as it more accurately captures a record of work, rather than just any activity.
Q. Why not use a term like 'ticket'?
We conducted research with a diverse range of teams that had varying levels of technical knowledge. Although there were many common terms that teams used to describe their work, most were not broadly suitable. Based on the feedback we received, 'work item' was chosen as the most appropriate term for all teams.
Q: Can admins choose what term replaces 'issue'? Will this be a site or project-level setting?
No, admins will not have the option to decide what term replaces ‘issue.’ By default, ‘issue’ will be replaced with ‘work item’ for all Jira customers at the site level.
Q: Will this change be implemented in Jira Data Center as well?
As of now, there are no concrete plans to introduce this change to Jira Data Center in the near future.
Q: How can I see a preview of what this might look like in Jira?
You can use our Chrome extension and select 'work item' to preview Jira with the updated terminology. Please note that this extension performs a broad find-and-replace of terms and does not reflect the final implementation of work in Jira.
Josh Sherwood
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