Default Priority of Blocker being set on new Child issues

[Celeste Momsen]

I have created a new Project and imported some issues of the Type "Epic", along with Child Issues (of the type "Task") linked to them.

However when opening the Epic and manually creating a new child Task, the Priority is automatically being set to "Blocker". How can I stop this from happening, so that NO Priority is set?

[Petter Gonçalves · Accepted solution]

Hello @Celeste Momsen

Thank you for reaching out.

The summary of your questions is talking about the workflow status of your issues, however, in its description, you are talking about the priority field. Can you please confirm to us which field is being set by default in your newly created issues?

By the context, I assume you are talking about the priority field so I will give you my answer based on this assumption, but let me know if I understood it wrong:

Indeed, the default priority field in Jira can not be configured with no default value, it's a system required field that can not be changed to "optional". We have the following feature request to allow this action:

Allow 'No default' for Priority

Feel free to vote and watch the suggestion to increase its priority and also receive notifications about any updates.

As a workaround to ensure the priority was selected by the users and not kept as the default one, you can add a new priority type called "None" and use the "Field has been modified" Validator to ensure the priority is changed when the issue is created.

Let us know if you have any questions.

[Celeste Momsen]

Hi Petter

Apologies, I incorrectly referred to "Status" in my initial description of this issue, and have since changed it to "Priority".

Thank you for your response. I have explored this, but then realised it appears as if something is not working the way it should.

In the project in question (note that it is a Next gen project), the Task Issue Type has the "Priority" field defined as a Context field, and the default priority is shown as being "Optional" to define. This is why I didn't select a specific Priority here.

I then went into an Epic within this issue and manually created a child task.

The result is that the child task is now created with a "Major" priority by default, in spite of me not having defined a default value in the Settings (because it was shown as being "optional").

So, it has now changed from a default of Blocker to a default of Major. Either way, according to my understanding there should not be a default value at all.

This raises the question as to whether a defaut value really IS optional in the Issue type settings of the Project, or if there's another setting overriding this?

I have tried in 3 or 4 different projects, with different issue types. Whether a child or a parent issue, the same is happening - The Priority is automatically set to "Major".

Would really appreciate input as to why this is happening. Thanks!

[Petter Gonçalves]

Hello @Celeste Momsen

Thank you for the provided details.

Next-gen projects work in a slightly different way. In fact, Next-gen was created to provide a simpler and straight-forward solution with fewer customization options for those customers that felt overwhelmed by the complexity of Jira Cloud projects.

That being said, the priority fields in Next-gen projects can be selected with a default value per project or not. If the project does not have a default value (been flagged as optional), the value selected will be the one defined for all projects in the Jira site in the General Priority configuration page.

We understand the word "Optional" might cause some confusion, so we are currently working to improve this feature.

Let us know if you have any questions.

[Celeste Momsen]

Hi Petter

Thanks for your response. I now see that if I don't specify a Priority for a certain Issue Type in a Project, it automatically applies the default Priority at system level.

Appreciate the help!