Worst Jira Admin Contest: Two Fields with the Same Name

[#1]

Mistake 16

I recommend not creating more than one custom field with the same name. Even if the fields have different types, it makes it hard to differentiate between them. It’s hard to tell the difference for application administrators creating screens and for end uses searching for issues.

Admin View

As a Jira administrator, I wanted to add the “Cost” custom field to the Purchasing project’s create screen. When I tried, I noticed that there were two custom fields named “Cost”. I’ll need to research the fields to figure out whether I want the one of type “number” or the one of type “text”.

Jira administrator view → Two fields named “Cost” on a screen

Sometimes I’ll add them both and then create a test issue to see which one I should use.

User View

Now let’s look at the experience from an end user’s perspective. It’s impossible for end users to know which to select. Here’s what they see when they attempt a query. In Cloud, the field’s type is displayed, but my question still stands. How does the user know which to select?

Jira user view → Two fields named “Cost” in search

I suggest avoiding the problem altogether, by not creating multiple custom fields with the same name.

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