Coloring by custom fields
- The content on this page is specific to the following custom field types: single-choice select, multiple-choice select, checkbox, and radio button.
- Before you begin, note that the custom fields should already be existing in your Jira instance, and the custom fields should also already be existing in your Portfolio plan.
Coloring the issues in a plan by custom fields can help you visualize any trends or themes that could be surfacing in your plan. This is helpful when sharing your plans with stakeholders — they can quickly pick up any relevant, visual insights just by how the issues in the plan are colored.
For example, you might have a single-choice select custom field called change risk, with the following options for it: low, medium, high, and critical.
Sample settings for coloring change risk custom fields
By choosing colors for the options of the change risk custom field, you can quickly see the change risks existing in your plan. This is useful for allocating the efforts of your teams to the issues that need the most attention.
Sample plan with colored change risk custom fields
To set colors for a custom field in a plan:
- In the roadmap view of the plan, click View settings.
- From the 'Color by' menu, choose the custom field type that you want to color issues by. The options for the custom field colors will be displayed.
- Click + Add color. A color palette will be displayed.
- Choose a color.
- Click the 'Choose option' menu to display the available options in your Jira instance.
- Choose an option for the color.
Managing custom fields and colors
You can manage the custom fields and colors being used in your plan, to help your audience visually assimilate the data in your plan at a glance.
For example, you have the following view settings configured for your plan:
With these view settings configured, you can do any of the following as needed:
| Assign multiple options to a color |
In the example above, the critical and high options are assigned to the same color blue. Issues having any of these change risk options will then be in the color red. |
| Remove an option from a color |
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| Reset the options assigned to colors | Over time, you may find yourself needing to reset and start configuring the colors and custom field options in your plan from scratch. To do this, click Clear all colors. |
Notes when coloring by custom fields
In your Jira instance, there may be options configured that are not appearing when you're setting colors in your Portfolio plan. This is because even if the options do exist in Jira, you can only set colors to the options that are being used in your plan.
For instance, you may have Change risk as a single-choice select custom field, with high, medium, and low as its options. Let's say the issues in your plan are set to only medium and low. Because high is not used by any issues in your plan, you can then only set colors for medium and low.
Change risk single-choice select custom field, with high not appearing as an option