What are thoughts on labels vs components?

[Sara Creenan (M&T)]

Do you use both labels and components? Do you keep both at the team level? When do you use one over the other?  

[John Funk]

Hey Sara,

I prefer Components because they are a set value that is controlled at the Project level by a Project Administrator. All of that to say that users have to select a value versus adding their own or making a typo. Both of which can be done with Labels. 

However, Components have to be added for each Project individually whereas Labels can be used across the board after one is entered. But, again, because of the ability to make typos or add case-sensitive differences, they are unreliable to me. 

Again, my two cents. :-)

[William Naughton]

Hi Sara,

We use both.  We use Components at the Product (Project) level.  It is a good way to group issues.  They tend to be unique for each Product (Project).  We use Labels too.  Less for grouping and more for filtering.  We are striving to have a common set of Labels to be used across projects.  However, Labels tend to be more team specific in use.  There is a Label gadget you can add to a Dashboard that shows all the labels used in a project.  I hope this helps.

[Dev]

I think components are the way to go for classifications at a project level. It ensures that issue grouping is consistent within the project among team members. 

Labels give team members freedom to classify at an individual level. I wouldn't recommend them at a project level because it is impossible to maintain grouping integrity, e.g., if one team member uses dbconfig and another uses databases and another uses mysql then it wouldn't take long before your database issues would fall of the radar. However these distinctions could be useful to those team members for personal filters to drill beyond the "database" component level.