Template configuration

This chapter guides you through the configuration options available when setting up a new work item template in the Issue Templates for Jira app. Templates are created based on existing Jira work items and can be customized to control how and where they are used.

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Create a template

To prepare a template simply create a new work item or select an existing work item in your Repository space and enable it as a template in the work item details view.

Once your work item has been enabled it becomes a template and you can configure it according to your needs by clicking the Edit settings button.

Configure a template

You can configure your template using the following sections:

General

In this section, define the basic properties of the template:

• Template Name - Assign a meaningful name for easy identification.
  Warning

  Every logged user in Jira can access Template Name (even without browse space permission in templates repository), therefore you shouldn’t provide sensitive data here.
  Info

  If you leave Template name field empty, it will rollback to Summary’s value.
• Scope - Specify a set of fields used in a template. See Template scope for details.
• Template selection - Determine whether the template can be manually selected by users.
• Copy Subtasks - Choose whether subtasks from the source work item should be included when the template is applied.

Availability

In this section you can define the availability properties of the template:

• Limit the usage of the template to selected spaces - select spaces that have access to this template. If you leave the select empty, your template will be unavailable in all spaces. This operation is equal to disabling the template.
• Target space - select a space in which a work item will be created when it’s created as a part of a hierarchy. For example, you can configure your stories, so they are created in different spaces.
  With this feature you can create cross-space epics, which involve multiple teams working on different spaces.

In the Advanced Edition of Issue Templates for Jira, the Availability feature expands space-level restrictions and gives you control over who can use each template. Instead of simply limiting templates to certain space categories, you can define precise access rules by targeting:

• Specific users – grant access only to selected team members.
• User groups – make templates available to entire roles or departments.
• Space categories – combine with space-level settings for maximum flexibility. See Atlassian documentation for details.

This advanced availability configuration ensures that the right templates are always available to the right people. It allows organizations to streamline workflows, maintain security, and simplify the user experience by showing each team only the templates relevant to their work.

With this feature, templates become not just a convenience, but a powerful tool that supports cross-space collaboration while reducing clutter and complexity for end users.

Conditional create (JQL)

Use JQL conditions to control whether a child work item is created when a template is applied. The condition is evaluated against the parent work item - if the parent matches, the child is created.

To use it, simply enter a JQL condition in the JQL condition field.

Info

Conditions are ignored when the template is used directly (for example, without a parent).

If a child work item isn’t created because its JQL condition didn’t match the parent, any subtasks and linked work items configured under that child will also be skipped. The entire branch below the unmatched child issue will be omitted from the template output.

Dynamic Variables

Dynamic variables are placeholders which you can define in your primary template in text fields. In this configuration section you can change the order in which they are displayed to users on the create screen.

Smart Defaults

Smart defaults are configurable template fields that automatically calculate and fill in values using smart expressions at the moment a work item is created, enabling automation and dynamic data population. In this section you can configure them.