Set up fields per issue type

[emaborsa]

Hi,

I started using Jira weeks ago, dived into issue types schemes and other configurations. I created some projects and wanted to configure them in order to have global settings for the required and showed field per issue type.

As far I've understood, I can use the default Issue Type Scheme and default Screen Schemes. I defined 1 Field Configuration per Issue Type and configured the default Field Configuration Scheme mapping the field configurations to the issue types. I left the default screens.

When I am in an issue and click configure in order to show/hide fields, I expected the changes to reflect to all projects, but it doens't. Furthermore, I expected that the changes reflect only to the current issue type, but they are set to all.

How can I define a configuration, where I define fields for the single issue types and reflect them to all projects?

EDIT:
I figured out, I had to define different screens and field configurations for each issue type. I think to have set up everything correctly, but if I edit the fields starting from an issue, the changes are still not reflected to the other projects.

[Walter Buggenhout]

Hi @emaborsa and welcome to the Community!

Configuring fields and screens is probably one of the most complex configuration items in Jira. On the positive side, if you master this, you're probably ready to manage everything else.

In short, you need to make sure that you attach your screens to all projects to make sure they are using your screens. That does not happen automagically, unfortunately.

--

When you create a project in Jira, a lot of configuration is put in place. If you navigate to Project Settings > Summary in any project, you will see several schemes there (for issue types, workflows, screens, fields). Each scheme by itself is a predefined set of available configuration elements created by a Jira Administrator designed to make the desired set of options available to 1 or more projects.

At the absolute core is an issue type scheme. This is a group of issue types available for your project. It is extremely important, as the other configuration items (such as workflows and screens, e.g) are associated with the issuetypes in your project. As you explained yourself: you might want to see different fields for a task than for a bug or a story.

Over to the configuration of screens then ...

You will have already noticed that you can do multiple things with a Jira issue: you can create one, view it afterwards and even edit it if you want to modify it afterwards. Jira allows you to display different fields to your users in each scenario, and so you can have a set of maximum 3 different screens in what we call a screen scheme. I am guessing this might be the point where you got to ...

If you want dedicated screens for an Epic, you would end up with a configuration like this:

  Epic Screen Scheme

    > Epic Create Screen

    > Epic Edit Screen

    > Epic View Screen

Coming back to the importance of issue types I mentioned before - your project(s) will probably have more issue types then just epics. A traditional software project created from an Atlassian template also has story, task and bug. So you may need similar screen schemes for every single issue type.

Once you have these different screen schemes in place, you are at the point where you need to link those screens to projects. That means you have to create a new set of screen schemes for the issue types you use in your project. Because you need to link screen schemes to issue types, you'll need to define an issue type screen scheme. All it does is map the sets of screens to the issue types you need.

As an example, if you have a project with Epics, stories and tasks, your issue type screen scheme would look like this:

  Your custom Issue Type Screen Scheme

    > For Epics | Epic Screen Scheme

        . Epic Create Screen

        . Epic Edit Screen

        . Epic View Screen

    > For Stories | Story Screen Scheme

        . Story Create Screen

        . Story Edit Screen

        . Story View Screen

    > For Tasks | Task Screen Scheme

        . Task Create Screen

        . Task Edit Screen

        . Task View Screen

When you also have this in place, you need to associate this issue type screen scheme with your project(s). In project settings, navigate to issues > screens and switch the project's current issue type screen scheme to your newly created scheme.

On a final note; if you have created your existing projects from Atlassian templates, unfortunately every single project will be using its own, isolated schemes. So you will need to repeat that last step (switching the scheme) for every single project. To end on a positive note, once you've done that, all your projects will be sharing the same configuration. If you change anything to your screens afterwards, that change should reflect immediately across all your projects.

Hope this helps!