Advanced templates

Advanced templates unlock the full power of Issue Templates for Jira Cloud. Where a simple template captures an issue as-is, the advanced editor lets you decide, field by field, exactly how each value behaves when someone launches the template.

Open the advanced editor

Save an issue as a template

Begin from any Jira issue, new or existing. Open the three-dots menu on the right of the issue and choose Save as new template, the same first step as a simple template.

Switch to advanced configuration

On the save screen, select Advanced configuration at the bottom-left. The advanced editor loads with a section for every Jira field on the issue: Summary, Description, Reporter, and so on. Each one can be configured independently, so one field can pull a fixed value from the template while another prompts the user at create time.

The advanced editor exposes a behavior setting for every field on the issue.

How each field can behave

Before setting a field’s content, you choose its type. This is what keeps issue creation consistent and predictable.

Auto

The default. Jira manages the field and the app leaves it alone, unless the field is mandatory, in which case the user is prompted during issue creation.

From template

The field draws its content straight from the saved template value. This works for any content type: text, date, URL, checkbox and more. If the template uses variables, their configuration appears here.

Variable

The field becomes a placeholder filled by the user at create time. You can set the input format to text, date, dropdown, original issue, or reusable. A field set as a variable becomes mandatory during issue creation.

Static

You pick the content once, and it is applied every time without prompting the user. Useful for values that never change across a template’s life.

Empty

Unlike Auto, this forces the field to stay blank. It is only available when the underlying Jira field is not mandatory.

Children issues and hierarchy

You can template a whole tree, not just a single issue. When you save a parent issue that contains child issues, an Epic with its Stories and tasks, for example, the editor automatically lists every contained issue and offers the same field-level configuration for each. Launching the template then recreates the entire hierarchy in one step, with issue links preserved between parent and children.

Related guides

• Simple templates for the quick, capture-as-is path.
• Creating variables in templates to make fields dynamic.
• Smart values to compose field values from Jira context.