What exactly is the purpose of Project Keys???

[Александр Горшков]

I created some Project but can't find a way where Keys are of actual use in JIRA, or how they help with anything...

Any examples of these keys are used?

[Susan Wilson · Accepted solution]

The Project Key becomes the prefix for tasks created within that Project.  For Example:

I have a Project, 'JIRA Support', with a Project Key of 'JIRASUP'.  Each task created in the JIRA Support Project begins with the Project Key, so 'JIRASUP-1' is the task number.  This helps identify the task to the project, especially if you have multiple projects.  So, a second Project might be 'Project Two', with a Project Key of 'PT'.  Tasks created in this Project start with 'PT-'.  So, you can easily identify for which project a task has been created. I hope this helps.

[Александр Горшков]

Ok, I see, but why so difficult? It's much easier to identify the task using tag in a task's card, isn't it? Like in Asana - https://prnt.sc/qqrx2w. Project Key is like second name of project, it is complicated, how do you think?

[Susan Wilson]

The Project Key is only required when creating a Project, but its benefits for ease of project identification and for reporting outweigh the need to enter this value at start up, in my opinion. 

Our organization creates one Project per customer, so each team works within their project, while management can run reports to gather metrics across one or all projects.  It also keeps users focused on their project instead of trying to determine which task(s) belong to their customer via some other mechanism (custom field, label, etc). 

We have used both approaches 1) one project for all tasks and 2) project per customer and the general consensus is option 2 is cleaner, more organized, and eases activities and reporting processes.  

[Cristian Ionescu · Accepted solution]

Hi Александр,

Issue Key it is used to find a specific issue.

Every issue is unique like the car plate numbers. For this we are using Issue Key.

Example( If you want to find via JQL a issue: key=PRCMT-12) where PRCMT-12 is the issue key

[Balwant Singh rajput]

FIND PROJECT KEY