Choose whether or not to hide empty custom fields from issue views

Hi everyone,

Thank you for taking the time to leave feedback on this ticket. As you know, the new issue view enables Project admins to configure each custom field to either hide when empty or always be displayed. This is available in the new issue view for all Jira Cloud products (Jira Software, Jira Service Desk, Jira Core).
Learn more about configuring issue layouts

Thanks
Jira Cloud team

Hi everyone,

First off, thank you for continuing to provide feedback and sharing that you would like this feature to be implemented. Although it may take time to act on certain issues raised and we may decide to not implement something in favour of other features , we are constantly using JRACLOUD issues to look for the best opportunities to improve Jira!

With that being said, I have an exciting product update re: this feature.

As part of the new Jira issue view rollout (see blog post and documentation page to follow along.) we have updated how you can configure the layout of fields.

This includes the ability to always display a custom field, whether it has a value or not. Or, always hide that custom field This new configuration logic can be applied on a specific issue type within a specific project, across both the new next-gen projects and Classic projects (e.g. the existing Scrum and Kanban projects).

The new issue view can be enabled/disabled on a per-user basis by simply going to your avatar in the bottom right of the navigation and selecting 'Personal Settings'. From there, scroll down and see the Labs toggle to turn the new issue view on/off. Please note, this is only available for Jira Software and Jira Core projects, with Jira Service Desk coming in the future.

Ok, let's dive into how this works!

Classic Projects
The new issue view has a different overall design and information architecture, so the existing global screen configs, schemes, and field configurations were hard to map 1:1 because of a lot of existing custom logic. SO, we decided to take the fields you specified from the global screen configs and applied to an issue type within a project then let you arrange the ordering of those fields within each project!

See the Configure field layout in the issue view documentation page for how this is done. Note: You must be a Project or Site admin to 'configure' the fields on the new issue view AND the new issue view must be enabled for you.

Next-gen Projects
By default the new next-gen projects come with all the latest, awesome stuff we have built all wrapped within a project type. This includes the new configuration options and the new issue view. You cannot disable these things within next-gen projects, as they are tied together.

See the Working with next-gen software projects documentation page for more detailed information.

In these projects, the functionality is quite similar in that you have the ability to always display a custom field, whether it has a value or not. Or remove it from being seeing entirely.

Config layout logic recap - TL;DR

1. You must have the new issue view enabled from your 'Personal Settings' to specify hiding/showing custom fields. If you are using a next-gen project, you don't need to worry about that as it comes with the new issue view by default.
2. From the new configuration screen, you can specify how you display fields. There are 3 'buckets' to put fields into, depending on your needs for a specific project > issue type.
   1. Always show --> this displays the field whether or not it has a value. aka 'Primary Fields'
   2. Show when it has a value --> If the field has a value, it will display above the 'show more' on the issue detail view, because it has important information people should see. Otherwise, keep the field under 'show more' so people can see get to the field and add a value if they want. aka 'Secondary Fields'
   3. Hidden fields --> This hides the field completely from the issue detail view. For next-gen projects, you just simply remove the field.

Sorry for the long update, but wanted to give as much context and detail as I could. As I'm sure you are all aware, Jira's configuration capabilities can be quite complex. We hope you enjoy this feature, let us know how we did and/or how can we improve it!

Cheers,
Taylor Pechacek - Jira Cloud PM