10 / 35 / 75 / 150 / 325 / 480 / 650 / 875 / 950

Via answers.atlassian.com

JIRA only displays the values of checkboxes that have been ticked.

By default only the first two checkboxes are shown, which is bad since the hidden items may or may not be ticked.

Strikethrough can also be turned off.

Not a custom field, but rather a tab:

Simple Tasklists is not a custom field, but rather some specially formatted text (macro) in the issue description:

Note the ability to edit/delete items on the fly

Note the stars, indicating 'required' fields.

An issue's tasks can be completed by ticking the checkbox, and can be edited by clicking the pencil icon, yielding the same Edit screen used for template editing:

Here are the {task}'s in the description, plus the rendered view on the right. There is also a {tasklist} macro, but this auto-expands to a set of {task}s.

Due to what may be a bug, checkboxes aren't appearing as ticked when they should See https://answers.atlassian.com/questions/37042292/search-results-not-showing-ticks-in-checked-items

Options are defined centrally:

Options are defined per-issue. New issues acquire the Default Value.

Due to what seems like a bug, the Default Value doesn't display. One has to click 'Edit Default Value' to see them:

Options are defined per issue. New issues acquire the Default Value:

Options are defined centrally, but per-issue options may be added by end users, without breaking the link to those centrally defined options.

Todo items are defined per issue. New sets of Todos may be created based on global or project-wide templates.

A global template:

Options/Tasks are defined per issue. New issues may acquire a set of options from a referenced Template.

n/a

• Strike through is optional
• Items can be made 'mandatory', towards a 'Completed' field status.
• Addition of new items can be restricted by role

A few tweaks are available:

customfieldvalue.stringvalue stores ID references to predefined options:

11202
11201
11200

customfield.textvalue stores one JSON field per issue, with direct option values:

[{"id":"Overview Doc Written","type":"done"},{"id":"High Level User Stories Written","type":"done"},{"id":"UX Design Developed","type":"done"},{"id":"Eng Tech Spec Written","type":"todo"},{"id":"Eng t-shirt Size & Quarter Commit","type":"todo"},{"id":"All Sprints Scheduled","type":"todo"}]

customfieldvalue.textvalue stores one JSON field per issue, with direct option values:

[{"description":"Overview Doc Written","checked":true},{"description":"High Level User Stories Written","checked":true},{"description":"UX Design Developed","checked":true},{"description":"Eng Tech Spec Written","checked":false},{"description":"Eng t-shirt Size & Quarter Commit","checked":false},{"description":"All Sprints Scheduled","checked":false},{"description":"All Code Checked In & Tested","checked":false}]

customfieldvalue.textvalue stores JSON records (one per checkbox), referring to a predefined option.

{"checked":false,"name":"","mandatory":true,"rank":5,"optionId":11215,"version":"3.0","id":11215,"statusId":"none"}{"checked":false,"name":"","mandatory":true,"rank":4,"optionId":11214,"version":"3.0","id":11214,"statusId":"none"}{"checked":false,"name":"","mandatory":true,"rank":3,"optionId":11213,"version":"3.0","id":11213,"statusId":"none"}{"checked":true,"name":"","mandatory":true,"rank":2,"optionId":11212,"version":"3.0","id":11212,"statusId":"none"}{"checked":true,"name":"","mandatory":true,"rank":1,"optionId":11211,"version":"3.0","id":11211,"statusId":"none"}{"checked":true,"name":"","mandatory":false,"rank":0,"optionId":11210,"version":"3.0","id":11210,"statusId":"none"}

For per-issue checkboxes, "name" has a value and "optionId" is 0.

A custom table, "AO_9701C1_ISSUE_ACTION, stores todo items for issues and templates:

A group of todos is defined in the AO_9701C1_ISSUE_ACTION_GROUP table.

A custom table, AO_5345B8_TASK, is used to store tasks, which the {task} macros simply reference:

Likewise for tasklists:

• Free, with all the implications for support that entails
• Compares favorably with Kanoah.

• Search is currently broken (vendor contacted).
• The search/list view displays a progress bar rather than attempting to list the checkboxes, which might work well in some scenarios and not in others.
• Support is via a custom JIRA Service Desk instance. While possibly good for privacy-conscious users, it means there is no answers.atlassian.com "knowledge base" to tap into.

• The only viable choice if you need centrally managed task definitions.

• Creating a task list is rather an involved process: click on the Todo tab, pick a template and give the new Todo list a name; then Edit the new Todo list and assign a user; at which point you finally get checkboxes.
• Multiple distinct sets of todos per issue.
  • Notifications to watchers, permissions and other fancy features (see docs).

• Support via custom website; no answers.atlassian.com "knowledge base".

Simple Tasklists is the most interesting and promising of the bunch, because it implements its own back-end, rather than being limited by the custom field API, and exposes this back-end via macros in the description and comments. Tasks can be interspersed within a free-form issue description, or added via comments, and are all nicely aggregated by the Task panel. Like in Confluence, tasks can be assigned via @mention reference, and will appear in a user's task tray.

There is also the possibility (hampered by bugs at present) of ticking off tasks via the search results or gadgets view.

The plugin has some limitations and missed opportunities at present:

• There appears to be no search-for-issues-by-task facility (link)
• Syncing changes from issue to search results pages is buggy (link)
• Like all alternatives except Checklists for JIRA, issues do not share task list definitions. Each task list varies individually, and changing the templates will only affect new issues.
• The database refers to issue keys (e.g. PRJ-9), which probably will break if projects are renamed.