Optionwell documentation

Optionwell lets people who are not Jira admins manage the options of the select lists they own, inside rules a Jira admin sets. It works with single and multi select lists, cascading select lists, checkboxes and radio buttons on company-managed fields.

Where to find it

• Apps > Field options (Optionwell): for delegates, field owners and admins. Lists the fields and contexts you can manage, your requests and approvals, and the history.
• Jira settings > Apps > Optionwell: for Jira admins. Get started checklist, delegations, field owners, settings, all requests, the full history, and the same option editor.

Roles

Optionwell decides your role on its own side for every request, from your Jira account, your Jira admin permission and your group memberships as Jira reports them. Nothing the page sends can widen it.

Set up (Jira admins)

1. Settings: pick a notification work item (for example OPS-12, "Field option changes"). Optionwell sends its notifications through Jira's own email on that work item; recipients need permission to browse it. Choose whether owners hear about direct changes, and how many days a request stays open (default 30).
2. Field owners: pick a field and up to 20 owners. Without owners only Jira admins can approve requests, and nobody is notified.
3. Delegations: pick a field, all of its contexts or only some, the people and groups (up to 100 per delegation), and what they may do:
   • Add options
   • Rename options
   • Reorder and sort
   • Disable options, Enable options
   • Bulk import
   • Delete unused options Turn on Changes need approval to make changes wait for a field owner or Jira admin. Set Most new options per change to cap additions (0 = no limit). When a person matches more than one delegation, they get every action any of them allows, and an action needs approval only if every delegation that allows it asks for approval.

Groups are stored by id. If a delegated group is deleted, its members lose access and the Delegations tab flags it.

Changing options

Open a field and context from Fields. The table shows the options in Jira's order with their status. Each button adds a line to Your change; nothing changes in Jira until you preview and apply.

• Add: type the text and press Add to change. In a cascading field pick the level first (top-level options or the children of one parent).
• Rename: the new text shows on every work item that uses the option.
• Up, Down, Sort A to Z, Sort Z to A: reorder one level. Sorting is natural ("Item 2" before "Item 10") and ignores case.
• Disable / Enable: a disabled option stays on existing work items and in search, but can't be picked any more. This is usually the right way to retire an option.
• Delete: only for options no work item uses. Optionwell counts again right before deleting; if anything uses it, or Jira can't count, it is not deleted.
• Count work items: shows how many work items use each option (Jira's approximate count, 50 options per click, for work items the app can see).
• Preview checks every line against the options as they are now: text that is empty, longer than 255 characters or already used by a sibling (case-insensitive), options someone changed in the meantime, actions you aren't allowed. Apply change (or Send for approval) runs it. Add a reason: owners see it and it goes in the history.

Bulk import

Paste lines or upload a CSV or text file (up to 1,000 lines). A first line such as "Option" or "Parent,Child" is skipped as a header.

• Select lists, checkboxes and radio buttons: one option per line. Commas inside option text are fine. A line in double quotes is unquoted.
• Cascading select lists: Parent, Child (comma, semicolon or tab; quote text that contains a comma) or Parent > Child. A line with only a parent adds the parent. Missing parents are added before their children.

Existing options are matched case-insensitively: enabled ones are left alone, disabled ones are enabled again. Imports never rename, reorder or delete. The preview lists what is new, what is already there and any lines that could not be read.

Approvals

When a change needs approval, the field owners are notified and the request appears under Approvals for owners and Jira admins. Approve runs it after checking it again against the current options and the requester's current delegation; if either changed in a way that matters, nothing runs and the request is marked failed with the reason. Reject needs a short note, which the requester receives. Nobody can approve their own request. The requester or a Jira admin can cancel a pending request. Requests expire after the number of days set in Settings.

History and undo

The history lists every applied change (with each line's result), requests, rejections and setup changes, with who and when. Show as CSV gives a spreadsheet-safe export. Delegates see the fields and contexts they manage; owners see their fields; admins see everything, including setup changes.

Undo builds the reverse change and previews it:

• renames go back to the old text (only if nobody renamed the option again since),
• disables and enables are reversed,
• the previous order comes back,
• added options are deleted when no work item uses them, otherwise disabled,
• deleted options are added again (at the end of the list, with a new option id).

An undo goes through the same checks as any change: delegates can undo their own changes, and with approval on their undo waits for approval too. Each change can be undone once.

Field schemes

Jira is replacing field configurations with field schemes. A context can cover a project whose field scheme leaves the field out; its options never appear there. The option editor names those projects so nobody wonders why a new option is missing.

Limits

• 1,000 lines per change or import
• Jira's limit of 10,000 options per context
• 500 delegations per site, 100 people and groups per delegation, 20 owners per field
• Option text up to 255 characters
• The history keeps the latest 20,000 entries; requests and entries are kept for 365 days

What Optionwell does not do

• Create or delete fields or contexts, or change which projects a context covers
• Change default values
• Manage team-managed project fields (their project admins already edit those)
• Edit option ids, or restore a deleted option with its old id

Licensing

Optionwell is paid via Atlassian with a 30-day trial. Without an active license, options, requests and history stay readable; changes, previews, usage counts, approvals and new delegations or owners are refused until the license is active again.

Support

hello@greatwork.company, Monday to Friday, US Central time, first response within one business day.