We’ve always believed that Jira’s power has been its flexibility to represent all kinds of work; whether they be tasks, ideas, launches, stories, requests, bugs, or anything else.
Going forward, instead of referring to your work as ‘issues,’ Jira will call the different items you track exactly what they are: work.
Your feedback, questions, and suggestions are welcome to help ensure a smooth transition with these updates.
The issue with ‘issues’
When Jira started as a bug-tracking tool for software development a little over two decades ago, bugs were represented as ‘issues.’
Fast forward to today, thousands of functional teams of all types – software, marketing, IT, ops, HR, and more – use Jira daily to track work collaboratively. Yet for years, the way the work that teams track in Jira has continued to be represented as an 'issue.’
However, our customers have been clear that this terminology can be limiting and sometimes even confusing in the context of their work.
As part of this project, we conducted extensive research with existing Jira users, administrators, potential customers, and Marketplace partners. Along with analyzing data from our Chrome extension, we determined that “work” is a more suitable term than “issue” for representing the work of all types of teams.
What’s changing?
In our initial rollout, “issue” will be replaced by either “work” or “work item,” depending on the context:
- Work is a broader, conceptual term that refers to all types of work within Jira.
- Work item is used when referring to multiple objects of different types, for example on your Board, List, or other project views.
In future updates, we plan to incorporate the specific terminology you use for your unique work types. So, when you’re working on a particular type of task, the interface will dynamically adjust to reflect that context. For example, engineering teams see ‘bugs’ or 'stories,’ whereas Marketing teams may see ‘launches’ or 'copy.’
What in scope for our initial rollout?
As you might expect, replacing the term “issue” across the Atlassian ecosystem is a significant undertaking.
We’ve scoped and prioritized our milestones to ensure maximum customer value, while taking into account the time required for these changes. Our goal is to update the terminology on all UI surfaces used by 99% of Jira admins and users at the time of rollout, with the remaining instances being progressively updated afterward.
When is this update scheduled?
This update is scheduled to begin rolling out in March 2025. These terminology changes will be applied to all Jira Cloud products, including Jira, Jira Service Management, and Jira Product Discovery, as well as Jira Mobile, Confluence, Automation, and Loom.
How will this affect Jira Cloud APIs?
There are no changes to existing APIs; they will continue to function as usual with the term “issue.” This approach ensures that no backward-incompatible changes are introduced.
Please note that at release, there will be no updates to labels or descriptions in the documentation for existing APIs. However, we’re working on a plan to update this documentation at a later date.
Any new APIs introduced will begin using the terms “work” or “work item” rather than “issue.”
What is the impact on marketplace apps?
Apps on Atlassian Marketplace often enhance Jira’s functionality to meet specific customer needs and are typically seen as extensions rather than separate products.
For this reason, we recommend that partners audit their apps to identify areas where terminology may need updating. Understanding the scope of these changes is crucial to ensure a seamless transition when we roll out these updates.
We know that this can be time-consuming, but believe it will ultimately benefit the Marketplace ecosystem by attracting a broader range of teams into Jira.
There’s no requirement to update terminology before we begin rolling out, and we’ll provide additional guidance for Marketplace partners as we continue implementing these changes.
FAQs
Q1: Why not “item,” “record,” “activity,” “entity,” or “entry”?
While these are all valid options, our research indicated they can be ambiguous in what they represent. Our goal is to make Jira the place of work for all teams, and we believe work item is a natural replacement for ‘issue,’ as it more accurately captures a record of work, rather than just any activity.
Q2: Can admins decide what option to replace “issue” with? Will this be a site or a project-level setting?
No, admins won’t be able to choose what to replace “issue” with. By default, “issue” will be replaced with “work item” for all Jira customers at the site level.
Q3: Will this change come to Jira DC, too?
As of writing this answer, there are no concrete plans to bring this change to Jira DC anytime soon.
Q4: How can I see a preview of what this might look like in Jira?
You can try our Chrome extension and select “work item.” It’ll give you a preview of Jira with the refreshed terminology.
