Organizing work with components
Components are subsections of a project. They are used to group issues within a project into smaller parts. For example, teams may use components to group issues that describe work on specific data objects, services, plug-ins, or APIs within their project.
You can set a default assignee for a component. This will override the project's default assignee, for issues in that component. This can speed up assigning work to the correct subject matter experts in your team.
Only project admins and Jira admins can manage components.
The Components page shows a list of components and each component's details, including:
- Name
- Description
- Lead
- Default assignee
- Associated issues
You can add, edit or delete components from the Components page in your project's settings. From your project's sidebar, select Project settings > Components.
Add a new component
To add a new component:
- Select Create component.
- Give the component a meaningful name.
- It's a good idea to give a description to the component. Component descriptions appear as a tooltip when a user hovers their mouse over a component label.
- Optionally, set a component lead. This is usually the team lead responsible for overseeing work associated with the component.
- Optionally, set a default assignee for issues created with the component.
- Select Save.
When you add components to your project, a new Component field appears on your project's issues.
Select a default assignee
A component default assignee will override the project's overall default assignee. If someone creates an issue with more than one component, and the default assignees for those components are different people, then Jira assigns the issue to the default assignee of the component that is first alphabetically.
You can nominate an individual person by searching for their name.
If your project's team changes frequently, you can set the default assignee to a particular role. This can future-proof the default assignee of a component, in the case that someone leaves your project. Here's the available options:
Project default - if someone creates an issue with this component, assign the issue to the same person as the project's default assignee. Learn more about project default assignees.
Project lead - if someone creates an issue with this component, assign the issue to project's lead.Learn more about project leads.
- Component lead - if someone creates an issue with this component, assign the issue to component's lead.
- Unassigned - if your site allows unassigned issues and someone creates an issue with this component, the issue will remain unassigned.
Edit or delete a component
- In the component's entry on the table, select the Actions (•••).
- Select Edit or Delete.