JiraTeamLens for Jira

Why is there no Team field on my Jira work items, and how do I add it?

By Mortise Apps · 22 October 2026 · 3 min read

The Team field in Jira Cloud is the Atlassian Teams custom field: it ties a work item to a team from your organisation's team directory, so you can filter, report and automate by team. If you cannot see it on a work item, it is usually because nobody has put it on that issue type's layout yet. Adding it is a space setting, done once per space (and per issue type in company-managed spaces).

Short answer: In a company-managed space go to Project settings > Issues > Layout, choose Edit issue layout for the issue type, search for Team in the right panel, drag it into a section and Save changes. In a team-managed space go to Project settings > Issue type, search for Team, drag it in and save. People need the Browse users and groups permission to use the field.

Checked 22 Oct 2026: Atlassian Support's page "Teams in Jira projects" (read 22 Oct 2026). We have not repeated the steps on a live site for this article; the steps below follow that page.

Add the Team field in a company-managed space

Per Atlassian's steps for company-managed spaces:

1. Open the space and select Project settings in the left panel.
2. Select Issues, then Layout.
3. Select Edit issue layout for each issue type that should have a team (Story, Bug, Task and so on).
4. In the right panel, search for Team.
5. Drag the field to the section you want and press Save changes.

The layout is per issue type, so a common miss is adding Team to Story but not to Bug: bugs then have no team and drop out of every per-team filter and dashboard.

Add the Team field in a team-managed space

1. Open the space and select Project settings.
2. Select Issue type (pick the type you want to change).
3. Search for Team in the right panel, drag it into a section and press Save changes.

The permission it needs

Atlassian's page says: "You must have Browse users and groups permission in order to use the field." If one person sees the field and a colleague does not, compare their global permissions before rebuilding layouts.

Linking teams to a space is a different thing

The page also describes contributing teams: the team icon near the space name lets you link teams to the space, and those teams show at the top of the space pages. That link does not fill the Team field on any work item. Atlassian notes that spaces "can only have 15 linked teams at a time".

Automation and workflows: use the team's UUID

The Team field stores a team id, not a name. Atlassian's page says that in a workflow post function ("Update Issue Custom Field") "you must use the Team UUID value instead of the team name". The UUID is the last part of the team's profile URL, which ends in /people/team/<TeamUUID>. For Automation rules, the same page points you to the rule's Audit Log when a Team field action fails.

Check that new work gets a team

Once the field is on every layout, run a filter for work items without a team, so gaps show up early:

project = ABC AND "Team[Team]" is EMPTY AND created >= -14d

We make TeamLens for Jira, which adds the JQL functions noTeam() and teamIn(), so the same check reads project = ABC AND issue in noTeam() and a team filter can use the team's name, for example issue in teamIn("Platform"), instead of its UUID. The functions and their limits are on the JQL functions page. Without the app, the "Team[Team]" clauses above work in plain Jira.

FAQ

Is the Team field the same as a team-managed space?

No. "Team-managed" is a space type. The Team field is a custom field that holds an Atlassian team and can be added to both company-managed and team-managed spaces.

Why does my Team field search return nothing when I type the team name?

JQL compares the Team field by team id. Use the UUID from the team's profile URL, or a name-based function such as TeamLens's teamIn(); our article Search Jira by team name explains it.

Does adding the Team field to the layout fill in a team on old work items?

No. Existing work items stay empty until someone sets the field, by hand, with bulk edit or with an Automation rule (set the Team field from the assignee).