What are field schemes?

Field schemes allow you to control which fields appear on your work items and how those fields behave across different spaces. They act as a map that connects your fields to specific work types (like Tasks, Bugs, or Stories) and the spaces where your team works.

With field schemes, you can:

• Define field availability: Control exactly which fields are available to users.

• Set field requirements: Decide if a field is mandatory or optional for a specific type of work.

• Provide guidance: Add custom descriptions to fields to help users understand what information they need to provide.

• Manage at scale: Apply the same set of field rules to multiple spaces at once, ensuring consistency across your site.

View your field schemes

To view and manage your field schemes:

1. Select Settings () in the top navigation bar, then select Work items.

2. Select Field schemes from the sidebar.

You’ll see a list of all the field schemes on your Jira site, along with the number of spaces and fields associated with each scheme. Select a scheme to view all the fields it includes and make any changes.

Field schemes and field contexts

It’s important to understand the difference between these two settings:

• Field schemes control visibility (whether a field shows up at all for a specific work type or space).

• Field contexts control the content of those fields, such as default values and the specific options available in dropdown menus.

Read more about field contexts

Getting started with field schemes

To use field schemes, you’ll need to do the following:

1. First, create the fields that you need.

2. Then, create a field scheme that groups the fields you want to show together for a specific work type or types.

3. Finally, associate the field scheme with a space to apply its rules to work types within that space.