Set up Jira Software Cloud
Learn how to set up Jira Software Cloud and integrate it with other products and applications.
Customize cards
This page applies to company-managed projects only.
Learn 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
Benefits of customizing 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 issue type, priority, assignee, or anything you choose
Add up to three custom fields to display on the cards
Custom cards surface details for easy scanning in a Scrum backlog This example includes:
Issue summary
Issue details
Custom fields
Sample card in Active sprints of a Scrum board
Issue cards have three layers of information that are stacked on top of each other, and are always stacked in the same order:
Issue summary.
Custom fields added to the card.
Other related issue information, including issue type, priority, assignee, and estimate.
In both the backlog and board across Scrum and Kanban, the issue summary is consistently at the top level of the card.
To view more issue details, do one of the following:
Click an issue card to see more details in the issue detail view.
To see the issue details in full view in a new tab or window, right-click on the issue key, and then view the issue in a new tab or window.
Configuring card colors
You can base your card colors on issue types, priorities, assignees, or JQL queries. Once you have chosen a method, you can change or delete the colors for each type of card. This can be configured per board (not globally).
If not already there, navigate to your company-managed project.
Select Active sprints(if you use a Scrum board) or Kanban board (if you use a Kanban board).
Select More () > Board settings.
Click Card Colors and change the Colors based on drop-down as desired. If you change to a different method of card coloring, your settings for the old method will be retained so you can switch back to them later if you wish.
Once you have picked a method to base your colors on, customize the colors as follows:
Pick a different color for a card — Click the Color square
Delete a card color— Click Delete. This effectively resets the card to the default color. If you still have issues matching that card type, refresh the screen to reset the deleted card color to the default color).
Move a card color (Query-based only) — Hover over the vertical 'grid' icon, then drag and drop the color up or down to its new position.
For query-based colors, the order is important, as each issue will be colored according to the first query that it matches (e.g. if your first row has query "issuetype = bug" and is colored red, and your second row has query "assignee = kevin" and is colored green, then bugs assigned to Dave will appear red).
Base your card colors on... | Explanation |
|---|---|
Issue types | One color per issue type. A default color will be allocated to every issue type that matches issues on the board. Note, the issue type must already exist in your project to configure the color for it. Also, the color values won't display until an issue is created on your board. You need to create an issue on your board first, to configure the colors for the issue types. Default issue types and colors:
|
Priorities | One color per priority. The default colors are the same as used for priorities in Jira. |
Assignees | One color per assignee. A default color will be allocated to every user who is or has been an assignee of issues on this board. Note, the color values won't display until an issue is created on your board. You need to create an issue on your board first, to configure the colors for the assignees. |
Queries | One color per JQL query. You can specify whatever queries you wish. Issues that do not match any of your JQL queries will be shown in grey. See JQL for more information about JQL syntax. Example queriesShow all issues that belong to a particular component, e.g. 'User Interface'1
project = "Angry Nerds" AND component = "User Interface"Show all issues that are due in the next 24 hours1
due <= "24h"Show all issues created by a particular user1
reporter = "Jane"And1
reporter = "Bob" |
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 project.
Select Active sprints (if you use a Scrum board) or Kanban board (if you use a Kanban board).
Select More () > Board settings.
Select Card layout.
Add or delete fields as desired.
You can also enable the Days in column toggle to display how many days an issue has been in the board columns.
Using Days in column
This indicator is disabled by default for Scrum boards and enabled by default for Kanban boards.
When you enable days in column, the number of the days that an issue has been in a column are represented by a series of dots on the card itself. This helps you see issues that are stagnating — this 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 |
Note that if you move an issue back to a column where it's previously been, the indicator gives you the cumulative number of days the issue has stayed in that column.
For example, you move an issue to the 'In Progress' column, and it stays there for 2 days. You then move the issue to the 'Code Review' column, and it stays there for 1 day. During code review, you receive feedback, which requires more development work for the issue. So, you move the issue back to the 'In Progress' column, and it stays there for 1 day. In this example, the indicator reflects the cumulative value of 3 days for the issue in the 'In Progress' column.
If you have a large instance (i.e. 300,000+ issues, 100+ projects, 100+ boards, or 100+ open sprints), we recommend that you disable this indicator to improve performance.
Printing issue cards
Whether you're planning work or working on issues for Scrum or Kanban projects, it may also be good to print out these issue cards. You and your team can use the printed cards on a physical board, which can be a replication of your board on Jira Software. You can print a single issue card or multiple issue cards, if you want. You can also print all issue cards in your current board.
The printed issue cards include the following issue details:
Summary
Issue type
Issue key
Issue priority
Estimate
Assignee
Epic (optional in Active sprints/Kanban board)
Version (when printing from the backlog)
Up to 3 extra fields, depending on your card layout configuration
The printed issue cards fit on A4, A3, or Letter-sized pages in both portrait and landscape modes.
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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