Template scope

This chapter provides information on how to set template’s scope to easily maintain a template.

See the respective sections to find information about:

• Inherit scope
• Default scope
• Scope configuration

What is a template’s scope?

A Scope lets you decide which fields should be copied and which shouldn’t from the template’s issue. You can explicitly list all the fields you want to copy or use handy options like All fields or All fields except.

By default, a new template is configured to inherit a scope.

With the inherit option, a child issue will use the same scope as the one configured in the parent template. It is useful especially when you create epics with many stories and subtasks, and you need the same scope for whole issue’s hierarchy. For the primary template or if a scope can’t be inherited, the default scope will be used.

For further information navigate to the Default scope section.

Template’s scope configuration

To configure scopes navigate to the template’s repository > Project settings > Issue Templates. Open Scopes tab to:

• Add a new scope
• Add fields to the scope
• Set the default scope

Using All fields and All fields except

Using these options is especially beneficial when your template is dynamically changing. For example, your template is complex, and you anticipate that you will need to add new custom fields in the future.

Use the All fields option to copy all non-empty fields from the template’s issue. In some scenarios, you might not want to copy all fields, especially summary and reporter when applying a template, in such cases use the All fields except option. It is much easier to maintain a template this way, so it is the recommended option.

How to add a new scope?

Steps

To add a new scope:

1. Click Add in the left column, under scopes. The Add scope dialog box appears.
2. Type Scope name.
3. Click Add.

Result

A new scope has been added. Now you can configure the scope

How to add fields to a scope?

Steps

To add a field to a scope:

1. Click on the target scope.
2. Click the drop-down menu and choose field you want to add to the scope. You can also use the all fields except option.

Result

The selected fields have been added to the scope.

(Inherit) option

If all your templates in a hierarchy should use the same set of fields, you can configure each of them to inherit the scope. In most cases you won’t need to change anything, because newly created templates are configured to use this option. With that, you can easily change the scope for the whole hierarchy by just changing the scope in your primary template. All child templates with the inherit option will use the same scope as in their parents.

Default scope

Newly created templates are configured to inherit a scope. In case of a primary template and linked issues, there is no parent to inherit a scope from. If a scope is not explicitly set, then the default scope is used. In configuration, you can choose one of your scopes and set it as default at any time. One of the configured scopes has to be marked as a default one.

Steps

To configure the default scope:

1. Click More icon.
2. Click Set a default.
   

   

Result

Your scope has been set as the default one.

Which fields should be included in scope?

There are few fields that you should consider while preparing a set of template’s fields:

• Reporter - copying the Reporter field may be the best solution for cloning issues. On the other hand, if you’d like users to use templates and be the reporters, remove it from the scope or use All fields except and Reporter options.
• Linked Issues - by adding or removing Linked Issues field you can decide if links should be copied or not.
  Tip

  See Atlassian documentation for details about linking issues.
• Sprint - if you decide to add a Sprint field to the scope, the template and new issue will share the sprint. For further information navigate to Jira Software chapter.
• Summary - if you apply a template to an existing issue, changing its Summary may be redundant. Placing Summary in scope is the best solution in case of creating new issues from the template.

Which fields can be copied?

See the supported fields section for details.