Custom Fields in Jira - 3 New Types for your Projects

This article was written in collaboration with Appsvio - Gold Marketplace Partner.

Jira is made up of different fields. Some are required and standard, but you can create custom fields to craft processes that meet your needs when the default ones aren’t enough. In Jira settings, we have a bunch of custom field types to choose from, like texts, single dropdowns, and others, to capture your unique requirements. But when it comes to something extra, Atlassian Marketplace is full of advanced custom fields that can improve workflows. 

What are custom fields and why do they matter?

Custom fields are a powerful tool that allows all Jira users to tailor specific workflows to their projects and needs. Custom fields are extra pieces of data that users can fill in on issues using Jira Software, Work Management, or Jira Service Management. 

For example, you can create a custom field with your company’s products to choose from and use in internal projects to group developers' tasks. You can also use the same custom field on the portal to gather information about the incident and define in which product it occurred in.

That way, customers can define the product with which they have issues, and developers can easily filter tasks. With custom fields, teams have more flexibility in project and data management. 

In short, custom fields are additional fields you can add to the screens to gather more data. 

To open the custom fields library and create your go to the Global settings -> Issues -> Custom fields. 

️❗Note that in company-managed, custom fields must be created by the Jira admin. In team-managed, they can be made under the project by the project admin. 

How can you use custom fields in the Jira project?

Custom fields can be utilized in many ways. First, they can be used as usual fields to define data when creating an issue or ticket. Assign custom fields to project and issue type context to collect specific information like budget or escalation details. 

They can also be used for extra-level issue categorization. After that, you can display categories on a Pie Chart to visually see the distribution of the values. As custom fields can be searched with JQL for filters and added to dashboard gadgets, there are convenient ways for categorization, primarily when they can be used in multiple projects. 

Custom field updates can also trigger automation rules, allowing you to conduct actions you configure in the Automation rule. For example, it could be a bump the priority or call the external API.

As they also work on customer portals, they can be used to collect information from internal or external users that agents need to resolve tickets. Add customer fields to screens and request types to ask for an example of a product version. The data is displayed, as always, on the right panel of the issue view.  

There are rules and best practices for creating custom fields to make the most of them without generating chaos. 

Best practices for creating custom fields: 

1. First, consider custom field types:‍

Think about what data you need to gather, in which format, and how you need it to present that information.

2. Examine the custom field options: 

Ensure that the custom field you choose has all you need: if this field supports export or you can access it via REST API. 

3. Keep it simple 

Avoid duplicates and try to name custom fields as generically as possible so they can be reused in different projects. 

4.Search for a custom field that suits your team best 

As Atlassian Marketplace provides a wide range of extra custom fields, search for a perfect solution that will meet your team's requirements 100%.  

3 game-changer custom fields that you should implement

As we said before, Atlassian Marketplace proposes plugins with lots of new custom fields. Let’s look closer at Custom Fields Suite for Jira and three custom fields that can significantly improve your workflow. This app advanced custom fields with multi-level cascading select, Regular expression, Dynamic field for data control and portal interactions.

1. Multilevel select field for many levels cascades 

This advanced custom field allows users to create multi-level cascades. Natively, in Jira, you can create only up to 2 levels. Here, you can tailor the whole hierarchy with different choices to allow users and customers (it also works on the service desk) to define needs. 

Use case: Subcomponents 

You can use this field to sub-categorize issues, while this option is no available in Jira. With labels or components, you can’t create subcategories. Here, for example, you can add a Multilevel Select field to the DEV project and use it to subcategorize tasks like: 

Platform / Feature / Version etc. 

The value is always displayed in Jira view on details on the right. 

Read the detailed configuration in documentation.

Multilevel Select also has a dedicated gadget, so you can easily use sub-components in reporting. The gadget shows all issues from specific categories – all issues within one group are expanded after clicking the number in the column. Values in this dashboard can be grouped by status, priority, status category, and assignee.

Use case 2:  Create a tailored service catalog 

By implementing this custom field on the portal, you can create a well-tailored service catalog for business needs. The main difference is the entire service catalog is part of just one custom field - with Multilevel Select, you create more levels than natively, so you can 

build a field with a hierarchy in a specific request type. 

An example of a custom field used to build a service catalog: 

Level 1: Application selection - custom field

Level 2: Hosting Selection 

Level 3: Version Selection 

Level 4: Feature Selection

You can go on up to 7 levels and allow customers to define exactly which customer service they need. If they can choose the product, hosting, version, and feature, agents will already know, and they will not have to ask again. 

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2. Regular Expression (Regex) for validating values in field

Now, let’s talk about the second field to improve your workflow. No matter if you need it only for internal cases or for customer portal, Regex is one of the fields you need in your instance. 

This custom field allows customers to set the needed format and validate if the value is correct. 

Use case: Ensuring that address is correct on the customer portal

 Postal codes required on the customer portal

The workflow on the customer portal requires customers to input their addresses with postal codes for shipping. To ensure that postal codes are provided correctly and reduce errors, a regular expressions field automatically validates the constant values before submission.

If the data is invalid, the custom field can’t be saved, and customers are informed. That way, agents are sure that they get correct data without misspellings and mistakes. 

3. Dynamic field (Jira Expression) for displaying issues from different fields

Let's examine a dynamic field, last but not least. This advanced custom field is a read-only field automatically displaying the values from issues to bring most of the data. It can also be used in Jira Software, Jira Work Management, and Jira Service Management. 

Use case: Automatically count linked issues

When the agent opens the ticket, he quickly notices how many issues are linked to this request. He understands if this incident is global and its complexity. With the Dynamic field, agents can have this data in a read-only field with numbers at their fingertips.

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Key Takeaways

Custom fields are useful features that improve workflow in every team and scenario. Atlassian Marketplace proposes many advanced custom fields to improve tracking progress, customer support, and project management. With the Custom Fields Suite plugin, both Jira Software and Jira Service Management workflows can be easily changed into advanced and made easier for teammates, agents, and customers. 

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At Peakforce, we help organizations find the best configuration for their Jira with selected plugins and expertise. If you are looking for an Atlassian partner to introduce you to custom fields, you have come to the right place 🙂 Let us know if you have any questions and contact us via form or email. 

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