Advise on Acceptance Criteria a Separate Field. Pros and Cons

[Noemi Escutia]

I am wondering if it's best to add AC to Story description or add as a separate field? What are the pros and cons of keeping at as separate field. 

[Petter Gonçalves]

Hello Noemi,

Personally, I think that it would be better to use a separate field to define your acceptance criteria, due to the way you can manage and organize your filters and reports with this option. Some of the reasons include:

1 - Will allow you to better search for the issues using JIRA JQL filter

Using a separate field will allow you to specify your text search only to the specific field, avoiding the search for any other parameter in the description.

2 - You can configure checkbox to properly mark what is done and what is not

You can configure checkboxes as the custom field for your acceptance Criteria, where you will be able to better filter and generate reports like:

- Display issues which the first topic is done

- Display which topics take more time to be concluded/ by status changes

Let me know if this makes sense to you.

[Noemi Escutia]

Thank you so much.   Can you send me a screenshot of how you have this? I, unfortunately, am not the admin so I need to show our admin.

[Petter Gonçalves]

Hello Noemi,

There are several custom fields that you can use to achieve the behavior I mentioned above.

In my case, I used the Checkbox custom fields. Here are the steps to configure it:

- Navigate to JIRA Settings > Issues > Custom fields > Click to create a checkbox custom field and add all the options you want to check for your acceptance criteria

- Add it to your project screens

- Create a new issue and check how the acceptance criteria field is displayed:

Let me know if this information helps.

[Noemi Escutia]

Thank you. I will send this to our admin. I will let you know if I have any more questions. Have a great day!

[Petter Gonçalves]

You are welcome, Noemi.

Have a great day you too. :)