Chapter 6.  Screen Management

Fields collect data from users, and you have seen how to create your own custom fields from a wide range of field types to address your different requirements. Indeed, data collection is at the center of any information system, but that is only half of the story. How data is captured is just as critical. Data input forms need to be organized so that users do not feel overwhelmed, and the general flow of fields needs to be logically structured and grouped into sections. This is where screens come in.

In this chapter, we will pick up where we left off in the last chapter and explore the relationship between fields and screens. We will further discuss how you can use screens to customize your JIRA to provide users with a better user experience. By the end of the chapter, you will learn the following:

• What screens are and how to create them

• How to add fields onto screens

• How to break down your screen into logical sections with tabs

• The relationship between screens...

JIRA and screens

Before you can start working with screens, you need to first understand what they are and how they are used in JIRA.

Compared to a normal paper-based form, fields in JIRA are like the check-boxes and spaces that you have to fill in, and screens are like the form documents themselves. When fields are created in JIRA, they need to be added to screens in order to be presented to users. Therefore, you can say that screens are like groupings or containers for fields.

In most cases, screens need to be associated with issue operations through what are known as screen schemes. Screen schemes map screens to operations, such as creating, viewing, and editing issues, so that you can have different screens for different operations. Screen schemes are then associated with issue type screen schemes, which when applied to projects will map screen schemes to issue types. This lets each issue type in a project have its own set of screens. The only time when a screen will be used directly is...

Working with screens

While many other software systems provide users with limited control over the presentation of screens, JIRA is very flexible when it comes to screen customizations. You can create your own screens and decide what fields are to be placed on them and their orders. You can also decide which screens are to be displayed for major issue operations. In JIRA, you can create and design customized screens for the following operations:

• Create an issue in the create issue dialog box

• Edit an issue when an issue is being updated

• View an issue after an issue is created and is being viewed by users

• Manage workflows during workflow transitions (workflows will be covered in Chapter 7, Workflows and Business Processes)

Screens are maintained centrally from the administration console, which means you need to be a JIRA administrator to create and configure screens. Perform the following steps to access the View Screens page:

1. Log in as a JIRA administrator user.

2. Browse to the JIRA administration...

Using screen tabs

For most cases, you will be sequentially adding fields to a screen and users will fill them from top to bottom. However, there will be cases where your screen becomes over complicated and cluttered due to the sheer number of fields you need, or you simply want to have a way to logically group several fields together and separate them from the rest. This is where tabs come in.

If you think of screens as the entire form a user must fill in, then tabs will be individual pages or sections that make up the whole document. Tabs go from left to right, so it is a good practice to design your tabs to flow logically from left to right. For example, the first tab can gather general information, such as summary and description. Subsequent tabs will gather more domain-specific information:

Adding a tab to a screen

You can add tabs to any screen in JIRA. In fact, by default, all screens have a default tab called Field Tab that is used to host all the fields. You can add new tabs to a...

Working with screen schemes

You have seen how we can create and manage screens and how to configure what fields to add to the screens. The next piece of the puzzle is letting JIRA know how to choose the screen that has to be displayed for each issue operation.

Screens are displayed during issue operations, and a screen scheme defines the mapping between screens and the operations. With a screen scheme, you can control the screen for displaying each of the issue operations, as follows:

• Create Issue: This screen is shown when you create a new issue

• Edit Issue: This screen is shown when you edit an existing issue

• View Issue: This screen is shown when you view an issue

Just like screens, whenever you create a new project in JIRA, a new screen scheme is created specifically for you project, and screens are automatically assigned to these issue operations.

The defaults created are usually good enough to get started with; however, there will be times when you would wish that certain fields should...

Issue type screen scheme

Screen schemes group screens together and create associations with issue operations. The next piece of the puzzle is to tell JIRA to use our screen schemes when creating, viewing, and editing specific types of issues.

We do not directly associate screen schemes to JIRA. The reason for this is that JIRA has the flexibility to allow you to define this on a per-issue type level. What this means is, instead of forcing all the issue types in a given project to use the same screen scheme, you can actually use different screen schemes for different issue types. This extremely flexible and powerful feature is provided through the issue type screen scheme.

Just like screens and screen schemes, you need to be a JIRA administrator to create and manage issue type screen schemes. Perform the following steps to manage issue type screen schemes:

1. Browse to the JIRA administration console.

2. Select the Issues tab and then the Issue type screen schemes option to bring up the Issue Type...

Associating an issue type screen scheme with a project

Perform the following steps in order to activate your new issue type screen scheme, which will display your new screens for the different issue operations:

1. Browse to the target project's administration page.

2. Click on the Screens option from the left panel.

3. Select the Use a different scheme option from the Actions menu:

   

4. Select the issue type screen scheme from the Scheme select list.

5. Click on the Associate button.

Once you associate the issue type screen scheme with the project, JIRA will show you the details of the mapping, as shown in the preceding screenshot.

The HR project

Armed with the new knowledge that you gathered in this chapter, together with fields from the previous chapter, it is time for you to further customize your JIRA to provide a better user experience through the presentation.

What we will do this time is create new screens and apply them to our Help Desk project. We want to separate the generic fields from our specialized custom fields designed for escalation. We also want to, at this time, apply the changes to the issues of the Incident type only and not affect the other issue types. As with any changes to be done on a production system, it is critical that you have a backup of your current data before applying changes.

Setting up screens

In Chapter 5, Field Management, you created a few custom fields specifically designed for our HR team. The problem we had is all the new fields are showing up for both New Employee and Termination issue types, regardless of whether they are applicable, and this is because both issue types use...

Summary

In this chapter, we looked at how JIRA structures its presentation with screens. We looked at how screens are used in JIRA via screen schemes, which map screens to issue operations. We also looked at how issue type screen schemes are then used to map screen schemes to issue types. Therefore, for any given project, each issue type can have its own set of screens for create, edit, and view. We also discussed how screens can be broken down into tabs to provide a more logical grouping of fields, especially when your screen starts to have a lot of fields on it.

Together with custom fields that we saw in the previous chapter, we can now create effective screen designs to streamline our data collection. In the next chapter, we will delve into one of the most powerful features in JIRA, workflows.