Configuring terminology
To help you follow Agile best practices, Jira Data Center provides Flexible Terminology. We’ve enabled admins to change generic Jira Data Center terms. You can keep consistent naming of sprints and epics between Jira and the Agile at Scale Frameworks including SAFe and LeSS. Terminology changes apply to any variant of English.
With this functionality, terms will also be replaced in custom field names and issue types, and everywhere else in Jira, for example in reports, issues, and search results. Jira will keep capitalization of original terms whenever it's possible.
We’ve added a new page to help admins define new terms. Regardless of the framework you follow, or the terminology you choose, you can quickly implement changes across your instance.
Defining terms
Before you begin
Terminology change broadly affects your instance. We recommend:
- backing up your database and important directories prior to submitting terminology changes
- making these changes during planned downtime or low-user hours, so that users don't get confused by the new names
To view and manage your terms:
- Go to Administration > System.
- Click Terminology.
- Define new singular and plural forms of your terms.
- Click Change names.
You can define singular and plural forms of your new terms according to the following rules:
You can’t swap names of epics and sprints.
There is a 40-character limit.
- Terms must be unique (e.g., epics and sprints can’t both be called “Potatoes”) and can contain only letters, numbers, and spaces.
All fields must have a value (at least one char).
Changing names may override translated terms in UK and US English language variants.
Adjusting terms across Atlassian products
Admins have control over Jira terms and can define them globally without third-party apps. But, there are some things you need to consider for other products:
- Advanced Roadmaps: Whenever you change the term sprint in Jira, it will also be changed in Advanced Roadmaps. But, epic won't refresh automatically. You need to update the level name separately. To do this, go to Plans > Administration > Hierarchy levels.
- Jira Align: Your Jira connector doesn’t sync platform terminology, so you need to update terms in Jira Align separately. To reflect the sprint and epic term update in Jira Align, go to Admin > Platform Technology.
Limitations
Terminology changes applies only to English language variants. For other languages, Jira displays original names.
- Flexible Terminology uses translations of Custom Field and Issue Type to localize their UI names. As a result, all REST APIs will return localized names when querying the API or saving the issue (for example, new term). Also, new change items will be persisted with translated field’s name so querying for a field’s history should take into account all current and historical names of the field. If your app or script has a hardcoded reference to an issue type named epic or custom fields with the following names:
Epic Name
Epic Color
Epic Status
Epic Link
- Sprint
If your app and scripts are already using custom translations for Custom Fields or Issue Types, you don’t need to make any changes.