Define how users see work in company-managed projects with screen schemes
10 min
Advanced
By the end of this lesson, you’ll be able to:
- Create a screen
- Associate a screen with a work item operation using a screen scheme
- Associate a screen scheme with a work type using a work type screen scheme
Create a screen
A screen is a configuration of system and custom fields that users see in a specific work item operation, like creating a work item. Jira admins define the fields that appear on a screen.
You can also use screens in the transition steps of workflows. These are different than work item operations.
👉 For example: When a user escalates a work item, they see the Escalation screen. They select a reason for escalation and add a comment.
Jira has default screens that project templates use. Jira admins can modify these screens or create additional ones.
Make sure to include required fields (Summary, Description, and Status) on your screens, or users won’t be able to create work from that screen.
You can use tabs to group related fields, making screens less overwhelming for users. You can also reorder fields based on their importance or usage.
To create a screen:
- In the upper-right corner of Jira, select Settings (represented by a gear icon).
- Under Jira admin settings, select Work items.
- In the sidebar, under Screens, select Screens.
- Select Add Screen.
- Enter a clear name and detailed description.
- Select Add.
- Locate your screen in the list. Next to the screen, select More actions (represented by ···), then Configure.
- To add fields to the tab, scroll to the bottom of the page and use the drop-down menu.
- To add tabs to the screen, select Add Tab.
- To rename tabs, select the pencil icon next to their name.
- To reorder fields on a tab, drag and drop them.
- To remove fields, hover over them and select Remove. This won’t affect existing data.
You don’t need to save your changes to screens. When you’re done, you can move to another page and the changes will save.
To delete a screen, it can't be part of a screen scheme or any workflows.
👇Watch this video to learn how to create screens.
Users have some control over how fields appear on their own screens. They can select Show Fields on some screens to see a list of all fields, including hidden ones. They can also pin fields to make them appear in a pinned fields section. Their actions don’t impact other users.
Create a screen scheme
Jira admins use screen schemes to determine which screens appear for each work item operation.
👉 For example: The Bug Create screen only includes a few fields because users have limited information when creating a new bug. The Bug View screen includes all the fields that the development team needs to manage and resolve the bug.
There are technically three work item operations: Create, Edit, and View. However, the Edit screen is redundant. Users edit work inline while looking at the View screen, so they don’t see a separate Edit screen. Therefore, you shouldn’t configure a separate screen for Edit and View; you should associate one screen with both operations.
The default screen schemes use the same screen for all three operations. You don't have to use different screens for different operations, but you can if that meets your needs.
Screen schemes don't associate screens with workflows, even though workflows can use screens. You associate a screen with a workflow in the workflow editor.
To create a screen scheme:
- In the upper-right corner of Jira, select Settings (represented by a gear icon).
- Under Jira admin settings, select Work items.
- In the sidebar, under Screens, select Screen schemes.
- Select Add screen scheme.
- Enter a clear name and detailed description.
- Select a default screen. This screen will appear for unmapped work item operations.
- Select Add.
- Locate your screen scheme in the list. Next to the scheme, select More actions (represented by ···), then Configure.
- Select Associate a work item operation with a screen.
- Select a work item operation and a screen.
- Select Add.
- Repeat this for all work item operations you want to configure.
👇 Watch this video to learn how to configure a screen scheme.
To delete a screen scheme, you need to remove it from all work type screen schemes.
Create a work type screen scheme
Work type screen schemes determine what screen appears during each operation for each work type.
👉 For example: When users create, edit, or view an epic, they should see the same set of fields. However, when users create a story, they should also see the Story Points field. When they view or edit a story, they should also see the time tracking fields.
There are default work type screen schemes in Jira. You can update them or create your own.
To create a work type screen scheme:
- In the upper-right corner of Jira, select Settings (represented by a gear icon).
- Under Jira admin settings, select Work items.
- In the sidebar, under Screens, select Work type screen schemes.
- Select Add work type screen scheme.
- Enter a clear name and detailed description.
- Select a default screen scheme. This screen scheme will apply to unmapped work types.
- Select Add.
- Locate your work type screen scheme in the list. Next to the scheme, select More actions (represented by ···), then Configure.
- Select Associate a work type with a screen scheme.
- Select a work type and a screen scheme.
- Select Add.
- Repeat this for all work types you want to configure.
Associate a work type screen scheme with a project
To apply the work type screen scheme, you need to associate it with one or multiple projects.
Only Jira admins can configure screens, screen schemes, and work type screen schemes. But, project admins can configure a layout for each screen scheme a project uses. This enables them to hide and reorder fields differently from the screens.
When you first create a company-managed project, it will use the default work type screen scheme for that project template. You can change which scheme a project uses after you create the project.
To associate a work type screen scheme with a project:
- Open the project in Jira.
- In the sidebar, next to the project name, select More actions (represented by ···), then Project settings.
- In the project settings sidebar, select Work items, then Types.
- In the upper-right, select Actions, then select Use a different scheme.
- Select your scheme, then select Associate.
Let’s explore an example!
Henrik is a Jira admin. He receives a request from a team of developers to simplify the screens related to bugs.
To meet this requirement:
- Either create a new screen, if Henrik doesn’t want to apply the changes to some projects using that screen, or modify the screen the project currently uses.
- Only include necessary fields on this screen, like Environment and Severity.
- If Henrik created a new screen, he should update the project’s screen scheme or create a new screen scheme that includes it.
- If Henrik created a new screen scheme, he should update the project’s work type screen scheme or create a new work type screen scheme that includes it.
- If Henrik created a new work type screen scheme, he should associate it with the correct projects.
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Best practices for managing work items and fields in a Jira site
- Best practices for custom fields
- Best practices for system fields
- Best practices for field visibility