Is there anyway to lock labels in JIRA ticket so it can not be removed?

[Kent Chiu]

Hi,

We would like to preserve labels on JIRA tickets so labels can not be accidentally changed or removed from the tickets.

Is there a way to freeze a label so the label is frozen with the tickets? 

We would like to restrict only the project manager or certain users can update the labels.

Thanks,

Kent

[Wolfgang Landes]

Hi @Kent Chiu 

Field specific permission is a hot topic in Jira. While there is no easy setting to use you can use the following workaround:

1. Remove the 'Labels' field from the 'Edit Screen'.

2. Add a self transition (From itself, to itself), call it something like 'Edit Labels'.

3. Add a screen that only includes 'Labels' field to the selftransition

4. Add a condition that only allows only the project lead, or only a project role to use the transition.

That's it, you now have Labels field locked to everyone except the user that is allowed to use the self transition.

Alternatively:

We built an App that not only allows to clean up (edit, merge, delte) Jira native 'Labels' field globally or on a project level, but also to create 'Label Manager' own custom field type that allow to predefine allowed labels globally or for each project.

Label Manager for Jira

This allows project admins to manage their the options themselves without help from global Jira admins. (Like components)

Also you can use the label as checklist by assigning traffic light colors indepent on each issue.

Hope I could help you

Thanks

Wolfgang

[Evan Golden]

Labels are not intended to be used that way. Probably best to use a custom field of a multi select list. 

[Kent Chiu]

Thanks Evan for your response.  A custom field of multi select list won't help to protect the labels/value of the selection since users can change or accidentally change the selection.

It seems that this is a limitation of JIRA for labels management. I have seen other tools where labels can be locked so the labels can not be changed or deleted from the ticket.

This feature is very useful to freeze and prevent accidental removal.

[Evan Golden]

Kent

would locking down who could change the values help?

or you can use a scriptrunner behavior to lock down the field from being edited as well. 

[Kent Chiu]

I think what you meant by locking down means to lock the custom field.

What I would like to achieve is let say, a ticket with a label call "MyLabel". I would like "MyLabel" sticks to the ticket until an authorize user can change or remove the label from the ticket. Users can still add other labels to the ticket but they can not change or move "MyLabel" from that particular ticket. We don't want to lock the field because users may want to tag their own labels for the ticket.

I have seen that labels got accidentally removed from a tickets and got missed from the list of tracked tickets.

I hope this helps.