Customize cards
This page is for company-managed projects
To check whether your project is team-managed or company-managed, select More actions (•••) next to the project name in either the header or the sidebar. At the bottom of the menu that opens, you’ll be able to view whether your project is team-managed or company-managed.
More about the difference between company-managed and team-managed projects.
Before you begin
To configure the board and any of its settings, you must be either:
a project administrator for the location of the board
a board administrator for the board itself
Why customize cards
By customizing the layout of the cards on your board, you're bringing just the right level of information to your team's attention, at a glance. You can:
Change the card colors to help your team quickly identify the cards on your board as being of a particular work type, priority, assignee, or anything you choose
Add up to three custom fields to display on the cards
The default card layout
Work item cards have three layers of information that are stacked on top of each other following this pattern:
The work item summary is always at the top on the board and backlog.
Any custom fields added to the card are next.
Then details about the work item, including work type, priority, assignee, and estimate.
To view all other fields, select a card to open the work item detail view.
Configure card colors
You can base your card colors on work types, priorities, assignees, or JQL. Colors are configured per board (not globally).
To add color:
If not already there, navigate to your company-managed software project.
Select the Active sprints view (if you use a scrum board) or the Kanban board view (if you use a kanban board).
Next to your board’s name in the sidebar, select more actions (•••), then Board settings.
Expand Layout in the sidebar, then select Card Colors.
Select method from the drop-down.
Select the square in the Color column, and pick a color for the work type, priority, assignee, or query. You can switch between methods, and your settings will be retained.
Some colors are no longer available in the new color picker. For assignees and work types, select Remove to update your choice.
Priority colors can be Reset to global color, that are defined in Settings, then select Work items, then Priorities.
To edit or remove colors from a query, select More actions (), then:
Edit the card color or update the query.
Delete the card color to remove the color and make it usable for other queries. Any work items that used that color will restore to the default when you reload your page.
Reorder a card color by dragging and dropping the dotted grid icon () to a new position.
For query-based colors, the order is important as each work item will be colored according to the first query it matches.
For example, if your first row has the query "worktype = bug" and is colored red, and your second row has query "assignee = kevin" and is colored green, then bugs assigned to Kevin will appear red.
For each method, you can apply one color for item. For example, pick one color for each work item type, priority, assignee, or query.
The colors display as a thin strip on the left-side of the cards on your board.
Method | How it works |
|---|---|
Work types | First create a work item on your board, then pick a color for your work types. A default color will be allocated to all existing work types. The default work types and colors are:
|
Priorities | The default priority colors match the default colors for priorities across Jira. |
Assignees | First create a work item on your board, then pick a color for your assignees. A default color will be allocated to every user who’s ever been an assigned a work item on your board. |
Queries | You can choose to add a color to any query. Work items that don't match your JQL queries will be shown in grey. Read more about JQL syntax. Sample queriesShow all work items that are due in the next 24 hoursdue <= "24h"Show all work items created by a particular userreporter = "Jane"Show all work items due by the end of monthduedate > endOfMonth() |
Configure card cover images
Quickly reference images directly from your board work item cards.
To add or change a work item’s cover image on the board:
Hover over a work item.
Select more actions (•••) on the work item.
Select Edit cover image.
Upload an image or select an image you’ve already uploaded as an attachment.
Once you upload an image as a cover image, it will also become an attachment to the work item.
To show or hide all cover images by customizing the entire board:
On the board, select View settings.
Enable or disable Cover images.
You can also add card cover images to team-managed software projects, and business projects.
Adding fields to cards
You can configure cards on a board to display up to three additional fields. The fields can be different for the backlog and Active sprints, if you are using a Scrum board.
To add fields to cards:
If not already there, navigate to your company-managed software project.
Select the Active sprints view (if you use a scrum board) or the Kanban board view (if you use a kanban board).
Next to your board’s name in the sidebar, select more actions (•••), then Board settings.
Expand Layout in the sidebar, then select Card layout.
Add or delete fields as desired.
You can also enable Days in column to visually indicate how long a work item's in a column. This helps identify slow moving work.
Using days in column
This is automatically enabled for kanban boards and disabled for scrum boards.
If you have a large instance (more than 300,000 work items, 100 projects, 100 boards, or 100 open sprints), we recommend you disable this indicator to improve performance.
When you enable Days in column you’ll see a series of dots on each work items to represent the number of days it’s been in that column (and essentially, status).
This helps you see if work items are stagnating and is particularly useful when your board is displayed as a wallboard.
Dots in cards | Number of days in column |
|---|---|
1 day | |
2 days | |
3 days | |
5 days | |
8 days | |
12 days | |
20 or more days |
If you move a work item to a column where it's previously been, the indicator provides the cumulative number of days that the work item has been in that column.
For example, you move a work item to the In progress column, and it stays there for two days.
You then move the work item to the Code review column, and it stays there for one day.
During code review, you receive feedback, which requires more development work. So, you move the work item back to the In progress column, and it stays there for one day.
In this example, the dots will reflect the cumulative value — which was three days — that the work item was in the In progress column.
Need help? If you can't find the answer you need in our documentation, we have other resources available to help you. See Getting help.
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