Cannot get a field added to search results because the name is too short.

Question

I want to add the field Project to my search results. We have about 60 fields with the word project in them, and most are alphabetically before p.  Therefore I cannot get to the word project in the list of available fields before it shows "38 more options - continue typing to refine further."  Unfortunately there are no more letters in this field name.  How can I add this field to the list results?

John Petterson · Answer

Unfortunately this does not work.  After one cycle adding all of the fields that appear on the list, I selected the Done button and then reloaded the list.  I see this:

That list is also the way you remove fields from the display.

John Petterson · Answer

Nic, Thanks for the lecture :-)

Unfortunately I am just a user in this installation but I will pass on the information to our admins.  And thanks for the work around - it will at least let me satisfy my need for this application and the saved search will be useful going forward.

Nic Brough -Adaptavist- · Answer

Two answers here

1.  You have "fielditis" and you should fix it.  You said "We have about 60 fields with the word project in them" which instantly tells me that you've let your users have way too many fields and your admins really need to do a LOT of system sanitisation.

JIRA does let you add as many fields as you want, but is not really built to cope with huge proliferations of (usually barely used) fields.  You say you've got 60 with the word project in them, which makes me think you've got thousands of custom fields in the system.  I start to worry when a system hits 100 custom fields, and really start to push back at 250.  (I'm talking about JIRA systems with 50k users, 5k projects and several million issues here - I can cope with that, but hit 200 custom fields and I start telling you your processes are broken)

Anyway, that's the lecture on fielditis.  It's right, but does not help you in any practical way.  So:

2.  Not a fix, but a work-around.  Type in project and start adding the fields to your search result.  Each time you add another field with "project" in the name, it will be removed from the search results.  So just keep adding them until you find the simple "project" field and can add it.  Then, go back to the search and remove the project fields you don't want.

It's slow and annoying, but it does get you there.  It's well worth saving the filter with its columns, because you can copy it as the base for another search and save having to do it again.