What is locked about a locked field?

[Ed Guy]

My administrator refuses to add locked fields to any screen, because they are "locked".  While manually editing some locked fields makes no sense (e.g. Rank), not being able to fill in "Story Points" during create/edit makes life difficult.  I need to help my admin understand what "locked" means and can't seem to find an explanation in the documentation.  Any help?

[Nicolas Bourdages · Accepted solution]

A locked field is simply a field that you can't configure, because it's used in plugins for instance and needs to stay as is. But that doesn't necessarily means that it can't be added to a screen. For instance, Sprint is a locked field, and you can have in in screens to add values manually.

Your example, Story Points, is not even locked in my instance. I've never seen it locked. You can even set default values for it, and is certainly available in Create or Edit screens if you want it to.

You can tell your admin that Story points is perfectly safe to add to a screen. 

[Ed Guy]

Continuing in this vein, I need to be able to set the flag in the editor (without having to go back to the Agile Board).  My administrator refuses to add the "Flagged" field to any screen for fear that it will break JIRA Agile.  Any useful words?

[Nicolas Bourdages]

I must admit I never used the Flagged field in a screen, but there's no way this would "break" JIRA Agile. It's like setting the Sprint by dragging the issue in the sprint box, or editing the issue and changing the value in the Sprint Field, this makes no difference. Your admin may be over-cautious. Have him try it on a test instance. It's quite hard to break JIRA like this in any case.

[Ed Guy]

Making the Flagged field available in the editor just saves a few steps now and then. We're thinking along the same lines. Thanks, Nicolas.

[Ed Guy]

Thanks.  That is my understanding.  Hopefully, your words will help make my case.  Have a great day!