Manage priority schemes

Once you're happy with the priorities available in your Jira instance, it's time to associate them with some spaces. You can select a different set of priorities for each space by using priority schemes.

What’s a priority scheme?

A priority scheme allows you to associate a subset of priorities with particular spaces. You can use it to achieve the following goals:

• Restrict the set of available priorities for a space

• Select a default priority that is assigned to all newly created work items in a space.

A single priority scheme can be reused across multiple spaces so that a group of similar spaces (i.e. spaces which might be used for similar purposes) can share the same priorities. It's also easier to add or remove priorities for these spaces because all you need to modify is a single priority scheme. 

Default priority scheme

Jira comes with a default priority scheme that contains all priorities and is associated with all spaces until you change it. You can't edit this scheme, but you can associate it as you wish.

To manage priorities, select Settings () then Work items then Priority schemes.

1. This is where you can find all priority schemes. 

2. Priorities used by a scheme.

3. A list of spaces that use this set of priorities.

4. Actions that you can perform on a scheme: Edit and Delete.

Create a priority scheme

You can create priority schemes to associate different priorities with different spaces. For example, if you have priorities “highest”, “high”, “medium”, “low”, and “lowest” in a Jira instance, and you want to associate only “high” and “low” with Space A, you can create a priority scheme to do so.

To create a priority scheme:

1. Select Settings () then Work items then Priority schemes.

2. Select Add priority scheme.

3. Enter the name and description (optional) for your scheme.
   Note: We recommend that you add a description to the scheme so that other admins can decide if they want to reuse this scheme instead of creating a new one.

4. Select Add priorities to associate priorities to this scheme. Additionally, you can set a default priority for this scheme.

5. Select Spaces to associate spaces to this scheme.

6. Select Add priority scheme.

Edit a priority scheme procedure

After you’ve created a priority scheme, you can edit the priorities and spaces associated with the priority scheme.

Associate priorities with a priority scheme procedure

To edit priorities associated to a priority scheme:

1. Select Settings () then Work item then Priority schemes.

2. Select then Edit for the scheme you want to edit.

3. You can:

   1. Select to remove a priority.

   2. Select Set as default to make the priority a default for the scheme.

   3. Select Add priorities to associate more priorities to the scheme.

4. Select Save changes.

Associate spaces with a priority scheme procedure

To associate a priority scheme with spaces:

1. Select Settings () then Work items then Priority schemes.

2. Select then Edit for the scheme you want to edit.

3. Go to Spaces and select the spaces you want to associate with your scheme.
   Note: If a space is already associated with another priority scheme, the space will now be associated with the new scheme. You may have to select new priorities for the work items in the space.

4. Select Save changes.

Delete a priority scheme procedure

To delete a priority scheme:

1. Select Settings () then Work items then Priority schemes..

2. Select then Delete for the scheme you want to edit.