Search features in JIRA (v5.2.10#853-sha1:c0ba268)

[Razvan Voicu]

Hi,

I am a developer with Standard Chartered, where we use JIRA as a issue tracker. I often need to perform specific searches on my tickets (I try to tag my tickets with labels in anticipation for such searches). I would find the following features extremely useful:

1) A way to list all the labels that I have ever created. They may appear in a separate control, or as a dropdown when I search by label

2) The list of labels for each item appearing in the search results, as a separate column.

3) Retaining the label order provided by the user for items that have multiple labels (currently, the labels will be reordered alphabetically -- whereas the original order represents the precedence that I attach to the lables), and using that in lexicographically sorting the search results, whenever I choose to sort by the labels column that (2) is requesting for.

Now, I'm not a very advanced user of your tool, so it may be possible to achieve similar functionality with features already available in the version we use. What I need is to be able to tag tickets with my own keywords, keep track of all the keywords I used, and be able to have some customized sorting based on these keywords. I wonder whether you could provide some advice on my problem.

Thanks in advance.

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

Labels are for adding adhoc flags to issues, and are not expected to have any specific weight. This rules out point 3 because the order of labels is completely unimportant. It doesn't matter when they were applied or what the order is, they're there for flagging items with some commonality, and nothing more. This actually applies to all fields in Jira - the order any data is added really isn't relevant to the vast majority of users, so there's nothing in the code to do it. In fact, I think your question is the first time I've seen it mentioned, and I've been with Jira since version 2!

Point 1 is a bit of a sticker - labels do not log who creates them. Again, it's generally unimportant who specifically adds a new label, as anyone can add what they want, and the field gently suggests reusing existing ones if it can. But I can see a use for "I put label X on some issue" and being able to search for where you applied labels. I think you might be able to do something in JQL, but I don't think it'll meet that exactly.

Point 2 is good news though - add "labels" as a column in your issue navigator. You'll see all the labels on the issues.

Your use cases are suggesting over-use of labels though - you may well be better off adding a custom field (select list or multi-select list) to capture the information you're putting in.