How to: Add a comment during a workflow transition and make it mandatory
Platform notice: Server and Data Center only. This article only applies to Atlassian products on the Server and Data Center platforms.
Support for Server* products ended on February 15th 2024. If you are running a Server product, you can visit the Atlassian Server end of support announcement to review your migration options.
*Except Fisheye and Crucible
Please note that:
- adding a comment during a transition and making it optional is possible using Jira's native functionality without the need for a paid add-on
- however, making the comment mandatory during the transition will require a Validator coming from a paid 3rd party add-on, since such a validator is not available in Jira out of the box. You can find such validators by installing any of the add-on below:
If you face any issue while using the validator coming from any of these add-ons, we recommend reaching out to the respective add-on support team, since 3rd party add-ons are not supported by Atlassian
Summary
The goal of this knowledge base article is to provide a way to add a comment during a workflow transition while making it required.
Environment
Jira Server or Data Center 8.x and later
Default scenario
When transitioning a Jira issue through the workflow, by default, you have some transitions that:
- Present a screen with several fields to fill in (e.g. Assignee, Priority, Reporter, Comment, etc)
- Do not present any screen. Just move the issue to the next step
Solution
In the example below, a user wants to add a comment while transitioning the issue from the 'Open' status to the 'Start Progress' status.
Log in as a Jira Administrator, and proceed with the following steps:
- Go to the page ⚙ > Issues > Screens, and click on the Add screen button located in the top right corner of the screen:
- Fill in the options to create a new screen:
- After that, leave the configuration page of the newly created screen as it is - without any fields added to it:
Go to the 'Workflows' page and edit the workflow associated with the project:
Note that Jira's system workflow is not editable, so it's necessary to copy it first and then edit the copy. After that, the administrator has to create a new workflow scheme, associate the copied workflow with the new workflow scheme, and associate the scheme with the project.
- Click on the 'In Progress' transition:
- Click on the Edit button:
- In the Transition View field, select the screen that was created in Step 2 (Comment Screen) and hit the Update button:
- Steps to make the comment mandatory -
Requires the usage of one of the paid 3rd party add-on listed at the beginning of this article- Click on the Validators tab, and then click on the Add Validator button:
- Depending on the 3rd party add-on that you are using, you might add either of the following validator
- If you are using JSU Automation Suite for Jira Workflows, you can use Fields Required (JSU)
- If you are using Jira Misc Workflow Extensions (JMWE), you can use either Comment Required Validator (JMWE app) or Fields Required Validator (JMWE app)
- If you are using ScriptRunner for Jira, you can use Field(s) required validator [ScriptRunner]
- Click on the Validators tab, and then click on the Add Validator button:
Click on the Publish link, in order to publish the workflow:
Be careful while publishing the workflow. All changes made to it will be published, in case there were changes made before reading this documentation.
You might want to save a backup copy of the original workflow, in case you need to revert your changes in the future.
- Create a test issue to make sure everything is working as expected and hit the In Progress button:
- From now on, whenever a user hits the In Progress button, they will be presented with a screen to fill in a comment.
- Depending on the 3rd party add-on that you chose to add the Validator to the In Progress transition, the Comment field might have a red star next to it, and an error message might be displayed in the UI if the user tries to transition the issue without adding a comment. The screenshot below was taken while using the validator Comment Required Validator (JMWE app) coming from the add-on Jira Misc Workflow Extensions (JMWE):
