work types distinguish different types of work in unique ways, and help you identify, categorize, and report on your team’s work across your Jira site. They can help your team build more structure into your working process.

By default, team-managed projects label all your tasks as either Task, if you chose to start with a Kanban project, or Story, if you chose to start with a Scrum project.

To view your project’s work types: From your project's sidebar, select Project settings, then Work types.

Multiple work types help you search and sort the work your team takes on, track the progress of specific types of work, even estimate how well your team responds to bugs or how fast they complete larger initiatives.

You can customize your work types to match any method of project management you want. We recommend agile methodologies, and we provide suggested work types to help you classify tasks to work in an agile way. 

Add suggested work types to your team-managed software project

You can customize your work types to match any method of project management you want. Jira Software recommends agile methodologies, and we provide suggested work types to help you classify tasks to work in an agile way. Learn more about agile and how to run an agile software development project.

To add suggested work types:

1. From your project's sidebar, select Project settings, then Work types.
2. From the sidebar, select + Add work type.
3. Choose one of the suggested work types from the list.
4. Select Add.

You can add up to 30 work types.

Your new work type appears in the sidebar, alongside the other work types your project uses. You can set a work item's type when you create a new work item in the project or on a board.

By default, team-managed software projects come with these suggested work types:

Parent work types

• Epic. Agile teams use epics to track larger sections of work composed of smaller tasks, bugs and user stories. Jira uses the suggested epic work type to power other features in team-managed projects, like roadmaps and reports. To use these features, you must use the suggested Epic work type (and avoid creating your own custom work type called "Epic"). Learn more about managing epics.

Standard work types

• Bug. Agile teams use the bug work type to track problems with their software, such as user interface discrepancies, broken functionality, or other niggles experience by users.
• Task. You can use the task work type to categorize miscellaneous tasks – like technical investigations, administrative work, or other project-adjacent tasks.
• Story. Agile teams use stories to capture feature requests and development work expressed as user goals.

Subtask work types

• Subtask. Sometimes work ends up being more complicated than you expected. Subtasks let you break down a bug, task, or story into smaller discreet tasks. Jira uses the suggested subtask work type to power other features in team-managed projects like swimlanes on the board, and progress tracking while viewing a work item. To use these features, you must use the suggested Subtask work type (and avoid creating your own custom work type called “Subtask”). In team-managed projects, subtasks are called “children” of standard work items like bugs, tasks, or stories. Learn more about managing subtasks.

Create custom work types in your team-managed software project

You can create your own work types to truly customize how you track your project and the information you collect to carry out different types of work.

To add your own work types:

1. From your project's sidebar, select Project settings, then Work types.
2. From the sidebar, select + Add work type.
3. Select Create work type.
4. Give your work type a name, description, and an icon.
5. Select Create.

You can add up to 30 work types.

Your new work type appears in the sidebar, alongside the other work types your project uses. You can set a work item's type when you create a new work item in the project or on a board.

Edit work types in your team-managed software project

Change an work type's name

To edit the name of your work type:

1. From your project's sidebar, select Project settings, then Work types.
2. From the sidebar, select the work type you want to edit.
3. Click the work type's name and edit it how you like.
4. Click Save changes.

Your work type's name updates everywhere in Jira.

Change an work type's description

To edit the description of your work type:

1. From your project's sidebar, select Project settings, then Work types.
2. From the sidebar, select the work type you want to edit.
3. Click the work type's description and edit it how you like.
4. Click Save changes.

Your work type's description updates everywhere in Jira.

Change an work type's icon

Your work type’s icon helps people scan and quickly distinguish between different types of tasks when they appear on your board, in search results, or in reports.

To edit the icon of your work type:

1. From your project's sidebar, select Project settings, then Work types.
2. From the sidebar, select the work type you want to edit.
3. Click the work type's icon.
4. Upload a custom image or choose one from the list.
5. Click Select.

Your work type's icon updates everywhere in Jira.

Change an work type's workflow

To edit the workflow of your work type:

1. From your project's sidebar, select Project settings > work types.

2. From the sidebar, select the work type you want to edit.

3. Select Edit workflow.

4. Adjust the workflow as needed.

5. To save your changes, select Update workflow.

6. From the dropdown, deselect lozenges to specify which work type the workflow will apply to.

7. Select Save.

Mark an work type’s required fields

To mark required fields for an work type:

1. From your project's sidebar, select Project settings > work types.

2. From the sidebar, select the work type you want to edit.

3. Select the Required checkbox for any fields you want to make mandatory.

4. Select Save changes.

Once saved, new work items of that type can’t be created unless the required field is filled out.

Restrict access to an work type in your team-managed software project

Some tasks may contain sensitive or confidential information. For example, to get their job done, software teams may require access to personally identifiable information (PII) or sensitive financial data. You can easily create an work type to estimate, prioritize, and track this type of sensitive or confidential work. And, you can restrict who sees that type of work to specific roles in your project.

To restrict newly-created work items:

1. From your project's sidebar, select Project settings, then Work types.

2. From the sidebar, select the work type that you want to restrict access to.
   

3. Choose the lock icon at the top-right of the work type.

4. Select the roles that can view new work items by default from the dropdown.

5. Select Restrict.

Any newly create work items are restricted to the roles you’ve nominated. Previously-created work items are unaffected.

Roles that have permission to Restrict any work item can change a work item’s restriction while viewing it. Learn more roles and permissions.

Delete work types from your team-managed software project

To delete an work type:

1. From your project's sidebar, select Project settings, then Work types.
2. From the sidebar, select the work type you want to delete.
3. Select … > Delete work type.

If you have work items that use that type, we'll warn you about them. You'll have to change their type to something that you actually use in the project, or else things can break. Don't worry, Jira will walk you through how to update those work items, if needed.