Adding a Custom Field

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JIRA lets you add custom fields in addition to the built-in fields. When creating a custom field, you can choose between Standard and Advanced types. For standard types, a preview image is shown for each type, so you can see what you are creating in advance. This ensures that you get the custom field you want, much faster. To configure search templates or add contexts to custom fields, use the Configure option on each custom field.

JIRA ships with over 20 custom field types and you can find many more in the Atlassian Marketplace (e.g. the JIRA Toolkit). To build your own custom field types, see the tutorial at the JIRA Developer Documentation.

Custom fields are always optional fields. This means that you can create a new custom field without requiring existing issues to be changed. The existing issues will contain no value for the new custom field, even if a default value is defined.

Adding a field directly to an issue

JIRA Admins can add an existing field or create a custom field while in View Issue with the Admin > Add field option. You can even configure the options for that custom field without having to leave the screens you are presented with.

See this page for instructions on adding a field from View Issue: Adding a field to an issue.

Adding a field using the Add Custom Field button

  1. Log in as a user with the JIRA Administrators global permission.
    Choose > Issues. Select Fields > Custom Fields to open the Custom Fields page.
    (tick) Keyboard shortcut: g + g + start typing custom fields
  2. Click the Add Custom Field button. The following dialog is displayed:

    By default, this dialog displays the Standard, or most common, choices for custom fields. Click on the Advanced option in the left navigation or use the search box if you don't see the field you are looking for right away.
  3. Select a field and click the Next button.
  4. Configure the selection criteria for your field, as shown in the example below:

    (info) The Field Name will appear as the custom field's title in both entering and retrieving information on issues, whereas the Field Description is displayed beneath the data entry field when entering new issues and editing existing issues, but not when browsing issues.
  5. Click the Create button when you are ready. You will be presented with a dialog that displays your field, in context, and you can select the display options at this point:

    Anything you select here will be displayed in the issue you are editing.
  6. Click Submit to finalize the process. You will now see your new custom field and selected criteria displayed in the issue, as shown here:

Next steps

If you wish to change the context or other variables in your custom field, see Configuring a Custom Field.

Last modified on Sep 9, 2013

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