best practice for custom fields?

[kris]

We use a lot of custom fields for our projects and usually those fields are specific to certain projects, but not always. Is there a best practice around custom fields/configs and also later removing the fields from screens? I could just remove the field from the screen, but then if I later audit the custom fields I can't tell which ones were actually in use before. Should I just hide them in the config? Each solution I come up with has additional questions. So, is there a best practice?

[Dieter · Accepted solution]

As Jira is currently implemented you should avoid too many field configurations and create more screen schemes instead. Please read this https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/JRA-29310. I hope this will be fixed soon. Please consider to vote there also.

[kris]

Thanks Dieter. We'll use that as a starting point :)

[Julie d'Antin [Elements]]

Hello Kris, 

I understand your concerns about getting custom fields right. My team and I interviewed a panel of Atlassian experts on how to manage custom fields in Jira effectively and we turned it into a guide. 

I think it could help you get started the right way. 

Cheers, 

Julie