Change issue key format to non project specific

[John Whittingly]

Current issue keys have format <project key>-<sequence number>.

We'd like to have the issue keys with format ABC-<sequence number> across all projects, (so the sequence number would be unique across all projects).

Is this possible?

(We are on version, 7.6.)

If not, is there a way to automatically generate this as a new custom field?

Many thanks.

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

You would need to rewrite the whole of Jira and all the add-ons to do this.  The whole thing is designed for users to readily find issues within projects, and destroying that would mean having to re-write all the places that work on the <project>-<sequence> assumption.

You could write something to fill in a field at creation time, but it's not going to be a lot of use to your users, as they will instinctively use the more functional and useful unique Jira key, and you may have the odd clash if people create issues at certain times or with scripts.  A more reliable option would be to use a field built with <project>-<issue id> as you know that number will always be unique, and incremented.  Although it might be a bit of a pain when moving issues (I'd do it as a scripted field myself, then moving issues won't affect it)

[John Whittingly]

I thought that might be the case.
Actually my request would be useful to our users as they currently use this method (not in JIRA) and wish to continue to do so when moving to JIRA.  The projects are related to the same product and items in one project can also be included in later ones, so a non-project specific ID makes more sense to them.

I'd tried creating a separate project to hold all these issues and using referencing but we need the progress of these to update the progress of the individual projects.  Is this last part possible?

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

I've heard that a few times before, and even implemented systems like it.  It does not take long for people to come to ignore the calculated field in favour of the Jira issue key, even when they've insisted that their custom key is the way they want to work.

But there's no harm in trying it, it might work.  But you'll need add-ons for it.

[John Whittingly]

Thank you for your assistance.  Can you recommend any good (preferably not expensive) add-ons for this?

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

I've only ever done it with ScriptRunner, which can do it in one line of code without needing to learn new languages and concepts (beyond Java and a quick read of the Jira API)

There are others, of course.  I'm not sure of pricing, I don't pay enough attention to that.