JIRA auto save issue draft

[KP11]

Sometimes with browser issues or time outs, a user has been typing a lot of data when his browser crashes when trying to save. Is there a auto recover feature or auto save feature to prevent loss of data? I know Confluence has one. Any option to turn on in JIRA?

[Renjith Pillai · Accepted solution]

While this is not a JIRA solution, the Chrome add-on lazarus is very handy - https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/lazarus-form-recovery/loljledaigphbcpfhfmgopdkppkifgno?hl=en

[Ben Schutz]

This addon no longer exists.

I think this needs to be reopened. In terms of the amount of complex content that you might be writing on ticket creation, I think this needs to be looked at seriously. 

[Drew Bartlett]

I agree with Ben... this is a feature I need as well.  I have been frustrated many times trying to write complex tickets, getting pulled away and trying to come back to it, just to have Jira having "refreshed" and losing my work.

[Maximilian Porzelt]

There is a jira app on marketplace that does the trick for comments - saving issue descriptions as draft is coming soon:

https://marketplace.atlassian.com/apps/1223509/autosave

[Ben Schutz]

Ok got some good news on this one. The auto save ability is partial there with the release of the brand new issue UI. So if you view an existing issue on the backlog or on the issue's own screen, you can enter content in the description field and it will be auto saved in a "draft" update. You can close the tab/browser/computer and that draft content will be there when you go to edit the description next time. It only becomes published when you hit "Save"

The trick for now is to create a basic ticket, and then edit it via the new UI when adding the  detailed info so that it auto saves in case something interferes with your work. Again, hit "Save" to publish.

I think their decision to only have auto save here for now is that;

1. it's their new UI so makes sense to put any enhancements there; and 
2. they don't need to add any UI to manage drafts version, like a "draft issue creation section", because you can just go back to edit the existing issue description to see the draft content.

[sfollen]

Good idea about creating a basic ticket to take notes on. Wish I'd thought of that before Windows restarted my computer and I lost 4 very complex tickets that I was compiling data for...

[Ben Schutz]

That's sounds horrible :( 

Jira should have been there for you. I suspect/hope the new experience is coming for creating tickets too, but auto-save is way overdue for a product of this maturity. 

The other limitation I've found is that the new issue experience is really still in beta, so you will have to decide between losing some traditional functionality and gaining auto-save on edited descriptions. For instance, you can't (yet) insert an image into the description that is already uploaded to the ticket, you have to re-upload and insert at the same time.

(also; Windows update force reset sucks)

[sfollen]

Oh, the number of times I have had to refresh the screen and delete and reinsert images... I don't even try to save tickets anymore; when I finish the description (which always takes forever because I am back and forth between 20 things), I just copy the whole thing, refresh the screen, paste over whatever is there when the screen refreshes, delete the non-images and then reinsert. Seems like a lot now that I am writing it all out...

And by the way, even though your suggestion was a great one, I've turned to the very modern technological fix of drafting myself an email and keeping notes in there about any tickets I need to raise. (Gmail does such a great job with autosave.) Works fine and allows me to be suitably distracted all the time, but it does remind me of 20 years ago when I used to email myself things in order to save them or pass them between computers. Ahh, technology.

Totally, totally with you on the forced reset

[Andy Vaughan]

> "The auto save ability is partial there with the release of the brand new issue UI"

1. Has the "brand new UI" been released? If so, what version was it released in?
2. Is this for Jira Cloud, or Jira server / installed, or both?

Asking because I can't see this option / feature in the instance of Jira that I'm using. I think it's one that's installed on our own infrastructure, not Jira Cloud.

Just lost a whole day's work because I was working on 5 things at once, got distracted, didn't save my ticket draft, closed my browser, and lost all the work. I know, I know - I should learn to click out of the Description box once in a while to save it, but ...

Might be writing my larger tickets in Google Drive now until they are ready for others to see, and then copy and paste them into Jira. Feels so wrong...