Tools for Jira
Tools for monday.com
Most teams run the same processes over and over: a release readiness check, an onboarding sequence, a code review before a story moves to testing, and so on. The key steps stay mostly the same, yet someone still has to paste them into a new work item manually every single time.
If you use subtasks for smaller steps, this turns into an even bigger pain. Too many subtasks clutter your board and create noise in reports. Using a checklist template is a much more efficient way to do this. It saves you from repetitive manual steps – and at the same time, it allows you to organize your work with a lightweight solution and without the subtask overhead.
In this blog post, we show you how to build reusable checklist templates in Jira, apply them to work items automatically, and track their progress in various ways. We also give you ready-to-use checklist templates for your agile team.
TL;DR: Quick Answer
- Jira has no native checklist templates. As a workaround, you can use action items, but you would still have to copy and paste them manually if you want to reuse the checklist.
- You can create a Jira checklist template with dedicated solutions from the Atlassian Marketplace. For example, Smart Checklist lets you add feature-rich checklists to Jira work items and save them as reusable templates.
- How to create a Jira checklist template in 3 steps: install Smart Checklist, add the list of checklist steps to your Jira work item, then save the checklist as a template.
- Smart Checklist templates come with useful extra features. For example, you can set a custom status for each checklist item, add assignees, due dates, priorities, and more.
- Checklists can be applied to work items automatically. Smart Checklist has native automation features that allow you to add checklists from pre-saved templates based on your conditions.
- In this article, we share free, ready-to-use Jira checklist templates for different roles. This includes product, QA, SEO, marketing, finance, procurement, HR, and development teams.
Now let’s take a closer look.
What is a Jira Checklist Template And Why Do You Need One?
Definition
A Jira checklist template is a reusable, pre-built list of steps that you can apply to a work item instead of typing or pasting the same steps every time. Checklist templates usually capture repeatable processes (such as code review or onboarding) or list standard criteria (such as the Definition of Done or Acceptance Criteria).
Using a Jira checklist template gives your team tangible benefits as it allows you to:
- Save time by reusing a ready process
- Standardize recurring work so every team member follows the same steps
- Reduce human error, since nothing gets forgotten
- Keep process knowledge in Jira, directly where your team works
- Onboard new team members faster with clear, ready-made instructions
- Organize smaller chunks of work without the subtask overhead
Jira itself does not offer this functionality out of the box. The closest native feature is Jira action items – basic checklists meant for taking quick notes during meetings. However, you can’t save action items as templates or use them with automation. As a workaround, you can save a list of action items outside of Jira and then copy and paste them manually when you need to reuse them. For more details, please see our article about Jira action items.
To overcome this limitation, agile teams that need to manage recurring processes usually use a dedicated checklist solution from the Atlassian Marketplace. In this article, we will explain how to do this using Smart Checklist for Jira.
How to Create A Jira Checklist Template With Smart Checklist
Smart Checklist for Jira is a process management solution that breaks complex processes down into actionable ToDos, without the overhead of subtasks. Checklists live inside the work item, so your team sees every step without leaving the ticket. You can set assignees, due dates, custom statuses, and priorities on individual items, then add details and links when you need more context.
Here is an example of a Jira Checklist template for event planning created with the help of Smart Checklist:
To create your own Jira checklist template in just a few minutes, follow these simple steps:
- Install Smart Checklist for Jira from the Atlassian Marketplace (small teams can use this solution for free).
- Open a work item and add your checklist. Paste or type your checklist in the Smart Checklist panel of your work item. You can also copy any of the free templates that we share later in this article.
- Customize your checklist template. You can group related steps under headers, assign individual checklist steps to the people who own them, apply custom statuses, make crucial steps mandatory, and more. Each checklist item can also include an expandable Details section where you can add relevant details, bulleted lists, links to documentation, and more.
- Save the checklist as a template. Open the three-dot menu in the Smart Checklist panel and select Save as a template, as shown in the screenshot below.
That’s it! Now you can easily import this checklist from a template in a few clicks, or set up an automation for it.
Smart Checklist enables you to save templates at two levels:
- Project templates – Limited to one Jira space (Jira project). This is a good fit for a process that belongs to a single team and does not apply to teams working in other projects.
- Global templates – Shared across your whole Jira instance and available in any space / project. They are useful for company-wide processes and standard tasks relevant to many teams.
Let’s take a look at other features that help you customize your Jira checklist template and adjust it to your team’s processes.
9 Smart Checklist Features That Make Your Jira Checklist Template More Powerful
- Built-in automation features – Smart Checklist allows you to add checklists to work items automatically, based on their type, status change, and other conditions.
- Multiple checklists – You can add several checklists to the same work item and switch between them in separate tabs.
- Assigning checklist items – Individual steps can be assigned to different team members with a set priority and a separate deadline. The assignee can view all items assigned to them on a dedicated dashboard gadget.
- JQL search – This feature enables you to find work items by checklist content, item status, assignee, or due date.
- Progress tracking – You can see checklist completion on the Progress bar inside a work item, as well as on your agile board and in Jira dashboard gadgets.
- Mandatory checklist items – You can mark critical steps as mandatory and configure completion validation. As a result, the work item cannot move to Done until all mandatory steps are completed. For example, the Mailtrap support team uses mandatory items to control escalation. A bug ticket cannot move into development until the subscription type, app version, and other details are all filled in. You can read more about this in the full case study.
- Linked templates – This feature lets you sync edits across all checklists created from the same template across multiple Jira work items. For example, an admin can add extra steps to the checklist template, and they will appear in all work items containing that checklist.
- Checklist history – Every change is recorded with the author and timestamp, which gives you an audit trail for compliance reviews.
- JSM integration – Smart Checklist can show checklist progress in the Customer Portal so requesters can track their tickets in real time. Apart from this, Smart Checklist works with Jira Service Management the same way it does with Jira Software.
This lets you build powerful, feature-rich checklist templates and effectively organize your team’s work on recurring tasks and processes.
Where to Find Your Checklist Templates in Jira?
Every template you save is added to the Template Management tab, so no one has to dig through old work items to find a checklist for the process they need. To find this tab, open any work item, click the three-dot menu in the Smart Checklist panel, and select Manage templates. Project admins can reach the same list from Project Settings -> Apps -> Smart Checklist.
From this Template Management tab, you can:
- Add new Jira checklist templates
- Import a checklist into a work item
- Rename and edit templates
- Set up automation for checklists
- Make a template Global or Project-scoped
- Make a checklist template Linked
- View and copy the Template ID
- Group templates into categories
Please note that deleting a template does not affect checklists already imported from it. Those stay in their work items exactly as they were.
How to Set Custom Statuses For Your Jira Checklist Template?
A checklist item does not always fit neatly into To Do or Done. Smart Checklist comes with four default statuses: To Do, In Progress, Done, and Skipped. You can also create your own, such as In Review, Blocked, or Approved. Each custom status gets a name and color you choose, so different stages of work are easy to tell apart.
Custom statuses make progress easier to read at a glance. A step waiting on an external approval no longer looks the same as a step nobody has started yet.
To add custom statuses, open any Jira work item, click the three-dot menu in the Smart Checklist panel, and select Manage checklist statuses.
How to Automatically Add a Jira Checklist Template to Work Items
Importing a template manually is fine for occasional tasks, but for processes that repeat regularly, it is better to have the checklist added automatically. Smart Checklist includes built-in automation features, so you don’t need to configure anything outside the app.
To set up automation for your Jira checklist template, open the three-dot Smart Checklist menu inside your work item, select Manage templates, and expand the template you want to automate. From there, you can assign the template to specific work item types, such as Story or Bug. You can also set more precise conditions for when it should be applied.
A trigger defines the moment when Smart Checklist checks the work item: on creation, on a status transition, or when a field is updated. A condition defines what must be true for the template to apply. Here are a few examples:
- Add a Definition of Done template whenever a Story is created
- Apply a Code Review template when a work item moves to In Review
- Add a Deployment template when the Components field equals “development”
- Add an Onboarding template when the Summary field contains “onboarding”
Conditions can be combined, and the template is applied only when all of them are met. Keep in mind that a template is added to a work item once. If the same work item meets the conditions again later, the checklist will not be duplicated.
Smart Checklist templates also work with Automation for Jira. The Import Checklist Template action lets you add a checklist as one step in a larger rule, next to other actions like sending a notification or updating a field. To do this, copy the checklist’s Template ID from the Template Management tab.
Here is an example of a Jira automation rule (flow) that imports a Smart Checklist template into a Jira Service Management ticket based on a request type.
You can read more about adding checklists to JSM in the Smart Checklist documentation.
How to Use Linked Checklist Templates in Jira With Smart Checklist
Definition
A linked template is a checklist template that has a live connection to every work item it is imported into. A regular template behaves like a copy. Once it lands in a work item, the checklist belongs to that work item, and anyone with edit rights can change it. A linked template stays tied to the original. Team members can move items through statuses, but they cannot add, edit, or delete them.
Linked templates are useful for processes that must remain identical across teams. When a compliance step changes or a security review adds a check, the admin can edit the original template once, and the update is automatically pushed to every Jira work item that uses it. Nobody has to go through open tickets and fix them manually. This also protects the process from local edits, ensuring that a release checklist looks the same across every project.
From the template details, you can see the full list of work items linked to the template.
Creating a linked Jira checklist template takes just one extra step. In Manage templates, click Create template and check the Linked box. Alternatively, open the three-dot menu next to an existing template and select Convert to linked. You can find more details in the Linked Templates documentation.
Real-life example
The TitanApps engineering team uses this feature for managing releases. The deploy checklist is a linked template, so developers can move items through statuses but cannot edit the steps. As a result, every release follows the same path, and one edit to the template by the admin updates all of them. More details in our case study Release Process with Smart Checklist.
How to Track Checklist Progress in Jira
Once your checklists are in place, the next question is how the work is moving. You can check progress in several ways, from a single work item up to a view across the whole project:
- Progress bar inside the work item – shows the number of completed items right above the checklist.
- Checklist progress on the agile board – displays the same count on the card, so the status is visible without opening the work item.
- JQL search – finds work items by checklist progress, item content, or item assignee.
- Dashboard gadgets – show aggregated completion across multiple work items, epics, and projects on your Jira dashboard.
Let’s take a look at the last option in more detail.
How to view checklist progress on Jira dashboards
Managers rarely need the state of one ticket. They need to know whether a release is on track, or where a process keeps stalling. Smart Checklist adds three gadgets to Jira dashboards, and each answers a different question. To add any of them, open your Jira dashboard, click Edit dashboard, search for the gadget by name, and configure it.
- The Checklist Completion gadget gives you a high-level view. You can define the scope with a JQL query, then group the results by project, epic, or work item. For each group, the gadget shows a completion rate. You can also add a breakdown by item status to see how much work is in progress, done, or skipped.
- Checklists Assigned to Me shows checklist items assigned to specific people across your work items. Despite the name, it is not limited to your own items. You select the users to monitor in the configuration, so a team lead can track a whole team from a single gadget.
- Checklist Pie Chart visualizes how checklist items are distributed across a set of work items. You can define the scope with JQL and group the chart by status category, status, or assignee. This gadget works best when you want a quick read on workload rather than exact numbers.
With this flexibility, you can track progress the way that suits your needs and processes. Pick the view that answers your question, and you will always know where the work stands without chasing updates from the team.
Jira Checklist Template Examples for Different Roles
Building a template from scratch takes time, and most processes have already been documented by someone. It is much easier to create checklist templates based on existing descriptions. Below are ready-to-use Jira checklist templates grouped by role. These checklists were prepared by our team and are available for free. Pick your role, copy the template you need, and adjust it to fit your process.
Jira Checklist Templates for Product Management
- Acceptance Criteria in Jira
- Definition of Done Template
- Product Discovery Template
- Jira Feature Release Template
- Market Research Template for Jira
- Release Readiness Checklist
Jira Checklist Templates for QA
- Regression Testing Template
- Pre-Production Checklist
- Jira Test Plan Template
- Jira Test Case Template
Jira Checklist Templates for Developers
Software release is usually an invisible process, managed by someone single-handedly. You normally don’t think about it until this someone goes on vacation or until something goes awfully wrong with a release. Then it becomes everyone’s problem. With a checklist, things are much easier to organize.
- Deploy Checklist Template
- Acceptance Criteria in Jira
- Definition of Done Template
- Definition of Ready Template
- Incident Management Template
- Bug Template for Jira
- Code Review Template
Jira Checklist Templates for SEO
Jira Checklist Templates for the Marketing Team
- Marketing Campaign Planning Template
- Email Campaign Template
- Marketing Report Template
- GTM Template for Jira
- Marketing Research and Competitor Analysis Template
- Event Planning Template for Jira: Offline Events
- Online Event Planning Template for Jira
Jira Checklist Templates for HR
Our onboarding process existed, but it was scattered everywhere. Every time someone new joined, I was basically rebuilding it from memory. That’s not a solid process. Now, when someone joins the team, the checklist is just there. The manager knows what’s pending, the new hire knows what’s expected, and I don’t have to chase anyone for updates
- Employee Onboarding Template
- Offboarding Template in Jira
- Recruiting Plan Template
- Position Opening Template for Recruitment
- Employee Evaluation Template For HR
- Performance Review Template
Jira Checklist Templates for Finance and Legal
- Invoice Approval Process Template
- Vendor Payment Template
- Jira Payroll Template
- Contract Review Template
Real-life example
The Railsware finance team cut payroll processing from about 12 hours per person per year in 2018 to 5 hours in 2023. Across more than 200 contractors, that adds up to 175 working days saved annually. For more details, see our case study How Smart Tools Optimize Payroll Processes.
Jira Checklist Templates for Procurement
You will find the full collection in the templates section of our blog, where you can filter blog posts by department.
The Practical Benefits Of Using Jira Checklist Templates With Smart Checklist
- Save time on repetitive work. Your team stops rebuilding the same process every week and spends that time on the actual task.
- Keep processes consistent across teams. Everyone follows the same version of a process captured in a ToDo list, so the quality of the result no longer depends on who picked up the ticket.
- Improve communication and add clarity. People know exactly what to do next, which cuts down on repetitive questions, back-and-forth, and anxiety around unfamiliar tasks.
- Know where the work stands. You get a real-time picture of progress at a granular level without excessive status meetings or follow-up messages.
- Onboard new people faster. A new hire can run a process correctly on day one, without a colleague micromanaging their work.
- Organize cross-team work more effectively. Assign checklist items to different people, set priorities and due dates on them, and easily coordinate several teams inside one Jira work item (Jira issue). All of this happens without the overhead of managing a pile of subtasks that would clutter your board.
- Keep process knowledge where the work happens. Your processes stay documented inside Jira tasks, right where your team works on them. This makes them actionable day-to-day and prevents bottlenecks around a single person with relevant tribal knowledge.
Jira Checklist Template Guide – FAQs
What is an example of a Jira checklist template?
The Definition of Done is one of the most common examples. It lists the quality checks a story must pass before it can be closed: code reviewed, tests written, documentation updated. Employee onboarding is another popular one. You will find our free templates for different roles in one of the previous sections of this article. Each one is a ready-to-use to-do list that you can paste into a work item and save for future use. To do so, open Smart Checklist’s three-dot menu and select Save as template.
Can you create a Jira checklist template with Jira’s native functionality?
Unfortunately, no. Jira has no native issue checklist you can save and reuse. The closest option is action items, a basic feature for quick meeting notes. You can keep them in a separate document and paste them into a work item manually, but that is a workaround rather than an actual template.
Action items also lack the checklist features that make templates so useful: no statuses beyond checked and unchecked, no assignees or due dates per step, and no way to add the list automatically. Some teams create subtasks instead, but subtasks are separate work items that can clutter the board. They are not a good solution for managing granular steps or quality criteria.
You can do this with Smart Checklist for Jira, which lets you save templates as Global. Project templates are available only in the space where they were created, while Global templates appear across your whole Jira instance. This suits company-wide processes and teams that follow the same workflows in different projects / spaces. You can convert a Project template to Global at any time from the Template Management tab.
What is Smart Checklist for Jira?
Smart Checklist is a process management solution by TitanApps, available on the Atlassian Marketplace for both Jira Cloud and Jira Data Center. It adds a checklist panel to your work items, where you can build detail-rich checklists, save them as reusable templates, and apply them automatically based on your conditions. It also connects to your Jira workflow, so a work item can be blocked from moving forward until all mandatory steps are complete.
In Jira Cloud, Smart Checklist runs on Atlassian Forge, so your data stays inside Atlassian infrastructure. It carries the Runs on Atlassian and Cloud Fortified badges and is SOC 2 Type II certified. You can find more details in the TitanApps Trust Center.
For more information about the solution, please see the Smart Checklist for Jira Landing page.
How do I create a checklist template in Jira?
Install Smart Checklist from the Atlassian Marketplace, open any work item, and add your steps in the Smart Checklist panel. Then open the three-dot menu and save the checklist as a template. The whole process takes just a few minutes.
How do I add a checklist to a Jira issue (Jira work item)?
Open the work item and find the Smart Checklist panel. You can type items one by one, or paste a whole list in Markdown if the steps are already written down. Each line becomes a separate checklist item, so you get a structured to-do list inside the Jira issue itself. Please note that to use this functionality, you need to install Smart Checklist first.
Should I use checklists or subtasks in Jira?
Checklists work better for steps that belong to one piece of work and do not need their own workflow. Subtasks are separate Jira work items (Jira issues), so each carries the full overhead of a work item: its own status, assignee, and place on the board. For ten checks before a release, that would turn a single ticket into a crowded board. Our article comparing Jira subtasks vs checklists covers where each option fits. It is also worth looking at the differences between Jira Checklist and Jira Checkbox.
