Defining issue type field values
JIRA applications ship with a set of default issue types to help you get started. You can add, edit and delete your own custom issue types to suit the needs of your team. The diagram on Configuring issues shows how issue types relate to other entities in JIRA applications.
Note that you can also:
- Control the set of available issue types for each project — see Associating issue types with projects.
- Control the display order of available issue types and the default issue type for each project — see Associating issue types with projects.
Reordering issue types changes the order in which they are displayed to the user who is creating an issue; and the default issue type is the one that is displayed in the selection-box. - Associate particular issue types with specific fields, screens and workflow — for details see Associating field behavior with issue types, Associating screen and issue operation mappings with an issue type, and Managing your workflows, respectively.
Tip: You can quickly configure the workflow/screen design of an existing issue type for a project via the project administration page. See Defining a project for details.
On this page:
Creating an issue type
When creating a new issue type in JIRA applications, you can create either a new standard or sub-task issue type. However, to create a sub-task issue type, you must enable sub-tasks.
You can also create sub-tasks on the Sub-Tasks page. See Configuring sub-tasks for details.
- Choose
> Issues. - Select Issue Types to view all issue types used by your JIRA applications.
- Select Add Issue Type and enter the following details:
- Name — enter a short phrase that best describes your new issue type
- Description — enter a sentence or two to describe when this issue type should be used
- Type — specify whether the issue type you are creating is a Standard issue type or a Sub-Task issue type. Sub-tasks are associated with individual Standard issues. Note that this option will not be available if sub-tasks are disabled.
- Select Add to create your new issue type. Your new issue type will be automatically added to the Default Issue Type Scheme. You may want to also add it to other issue type schemes — for more information, see Associating issue types with projects.
Deleting an issue type
Before you begin:
- If any issues of the Issue Type you are about to delete exist in your JIRA installation, please ensure this Issue Type has the following requirements (to ensure JIRA prompts you to choose a new Issue Type for those issues):
- the same workflow in all workflow schemes that are associated with one or more projects.
- the same field configuration in all field configuration schemes that are associated with one or more projects.
- the same screen scheme in all issue type screen schemes that are associated with one or more projects.
- Alternatively, you can simply search for all issues that currently use the Issue Type which you are about to delete and perform a bulk move to change those issues to a different Issue Type.
- Choose > Issues.
- Select Issue Types to open the Issue Types page, which lists all issue types.
- Click the Delete link (in the Operations column) for the issue type that you wish to delete.
- Complete the fields.
Editing an issue type
- Choose > Issues.
- Select Issue Types to open the Issue Types page, which lists all issue types.
- Click the Edit link (in the Operations column) for the issue type that you wish to edit.
- Edit the Name, Description and/or Icon as described above for creating an issue type.
Please note: To reorder an Issue Type, or set it as a default, see Associating issue types with projects. (Reordering issue types changes the order in which they are displayed to the user who is creating an issue; and the default issue type is the one that is displayed in the selection-box.)