What is an Issue?
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Different organisations use JIRA to track different kinds of issues. Depending on how your organisation is
using JIRA, an issue could represent a software bug, a project task, a helpdesk ticket, a leave request
form, etc.
A JIRA issue typically looks like this:
Note
Your JIRA issues may look different to the above screenshot if your administrator has customised
JIRA for your organisation.
The numbered fields shown in the above screenshot are:
-
Key — a unique identifier for this issue.
-
Type — see below for a list of types.
-
Status — the stage the issue is currently at in its
lifecycle ('workflow'). See below for a
list of statuses.
-
Resolution — a record of the issue's resolution
(if the issue has been resolved)
-
Priority — the importance of the issue in relation to other issues.
(See below for a list of priorities.)
-
Assignee — the person to whom the issue is currently assigned.
-
Reporter — the person who entered the issue into the system.
-
Project — the 'parent' project to which the issue belongs.
a. Component(s) (if applicable) — project component(s)
to which this issue relates.
b. Affects Version(s) (if applicable) — project version(s)
for which the issue is (or was) manifesting.
c. Fix Version(s) (if applicable) — project version(s)
for which the issue was (or will be) fixed.
-
Summary — a brief one-line summary of the issue.
-
Environment (if applicable) — the hardware or software environment
to which the issue relates.
-
Description — a detailed description of the issue.
-
Comments — added by people who are working on the issue.
Additionally, if your administrator has enabled 'Time-Tracking', the following fields will appear above the 'Description' field:
-
Original Estimate — the total amount of time required to resolve the issue, as estimated when
the issue was created. (This field cannot be modified once work has been logged on the issue.)
-
Remaining Estimate — the remaining amount of time required to resolve the issue.
This field only appears when work has been logged on the issue.
-
Time Spent — the sum of all the individual work logs for this issue.
This field only appears when work has been logged on the issue.
Some of the most important fields — 'Type', 'Priority', 'Status' and 'Resolution' — are described as follows:
Issue Type
Priority
Status
Each issue has a status, which indicates where the issue currently is in its lifecycle
('workflow'). An issue starts as being 'Open', then generally progresses to 'Resolved' and then 'Closed'; or, depending on
circumstances, it may progress to other statuses. Please also note that your JIRA administrator may have
customised the available statuses to suit your organisation.
-
Open
- This issue is in the initial 'Open' state, ready for the assignee to start work on it.
-
In Progress
-
This issue is being actively worked on at the moment by the assignee.
-
Resolved
- A Resolution has been identified or implemented, and this issue
is awaiting verification by the reporter. From here, issues are either 'Reopened' or are 'Closed'.
-
Reopened
- This issue was once 'Resolved' or 'Closed', but is now being re-examined. (For example, an issue
with a Resolution of 'Cannot Reproduce' is
Reopened when more information becomes available and the issue becomes
reproducible.) From here, issues are either marked In Progress,
Resolved or Closed.
-
Closed
- This issue is complete.
Resolution
An issue can be resolved in many ways, only one of them being 'Fixed'. The default resolutions are
listed below; note that your JIRA administrator may have customised these
to suit your organisation.
- Fixed
- A fix for this issue has been implemented.
- Won't Fix
- This issue will not be fixed, e.g. it may no longer be relevant.
- Duplicate
- This issue is a duplicate of an existing issue. Note: it is recommended
you create a link to the duplicated issue.
- Incomplete
- There is not enough information to work on this issue.
- Cannot Reproduce
-
This issue could not be reproduced at this time, or not enough information was available to reproduce the issue.
If more information becomes available, please reopen the issue.