How to set the Issue Category field in Jira

[Clayton Correia]

I'm having this issue. There is another question on it but it has an accepted answer that does not solve the problem. https://community.atlassian.com/t5/Jira-Service-Management/The-mysterious-quot-Category-quot-field-at-the-issue-level/qaq-p/2088328

Problem: There is a Category field in my Issues in Business Projects but it can not be interacted with.

When creating an issue there are no options I can select. In addition any text I enter is automatically cleared when I exit the input:

In the List feature, I can sort by Category but everything is just put in one "Uncategorized" group:

 

In Jira settings > Issues > Custom Fields it shows the Category field but it is Locked and the "type" is Unknown. I am the highest level admin for the product and then entire Jira application and yet I can make no changes to it.

[Trudy Claspill · Accepted solution]

Refer to this documentation for how to add values to the Category field for your Business project.

https://support.atlassian.com/jira-work-management/docs/categorize-items-in-your-list-view/#Add-a-category

[Clayton Correia]

Well, I guess this works. It's very odd that you can only interact with this field in the list view interface. 

It feels like a bug that you can't add categories via the Issues creation/edit interface (or other places where that field shows up).

[Alexander Metlewicz]

@Trudy Claspill 

I am facing the same issue, and it does indeed seem like a bug...

My problem is that even this solution doesn't work for me.

I can type in a category and I get the option "*Test* (New category)" to add a new category, but when I press Enter or click on the suggested new category , it doesn't save it, it just turns blank again. Anyone facing the same issue? Solutions?

After pressing Enter / clicking on the "new category" option, there is still no category added:

[Trudy Claspill]

@Alexander Metlewicz 

I suspect there has been an update to the functionality since I originally responded to this post. I don't believe that at that time the field displayed the "Add Category" option.

I see the same behavior as you now.

I recommend that you raise that issue directly with Atlassian Support.

https://support.atlassian.com/contact/

[Derrick L]

Was a ticket created? I am having the same issue.

[Daniel Bauch]

Same here 

[Trudy Claspill]

I recommended that @Alexander Metlewicz enter a ticket but anybody who is seeing this with a non-Free subscription should be able to contact Atlassian Support.

Please post back here if you do.

[Arthur Forestier]

I am facing the same issue, which is pretty annoying because we used to work a lot with the 'Category' field for our projects.

[Jim]

Any updates on this? Pretty frustrating.

[Jan Rudert]

Same behaviour here... Categories are not saved

[Petr Musil]

Same behavior here... cannot add any Category from List view as described in the help article, nor edit the field via Project settings as the field is "LOCKED"

any ETA to be fixed?

[Trudy Claspill]

Has anybody on this thread that has a paid subscription tried contacting Atlassian Support directly? I don't have a paid Cloud subscription so I am not able to open a case with Atlassian myself.

[Jay Stansell]

I've logged as a bug JST-809796

[Trudy Claspill]

@Jay Stansell 

Is that a support case ID or a Jira issue ID? I'm not finding JST as a project key in Atlassian's issue tracking Jira instance, so I'm guessing that might be the ID for a support case that you opened.

[Jay Stansell]

@Trudy Claspill  yes it was a support ID; however they've advised its connected to https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/JWMCLOUD-310

[Nishi Wadhera]

The add category works now. 

• Add category field to list view using the + sign on top menu
• In the list view, on a specific row, add the category name in the category field cell and press enter
• It saves it and allows you to add another

Took good number of hours to get to this solution and with the help of the content above. Amazing how time consuming it is with category custom field being locked by jira toolkit and non editable in all other ways.