The GitLab Issue Tracker is an advanced and complete tool
for tracking the evolution of a new idea or the process
of solving a problem.
Issues are the fundamental medium for collaborating on ideas and planning work in GitLab.
It allows you, your team, and your collaborators to share
and discuss proposals before and while implementing them.
## Overview
GitLab Issues and the GitLab Issue Tracker are available in all
[GitLab Products](https://about.gitlab.com/pricing/) as
part of the [GitLab Workflow](https://about.gitlab.com/2016/10/25/gitlab-workflow-an-overview/).
The GitLab issue tracker is an advanced tool for collaboratively developing ideas, solving problems, and planning work.
## Use cases
Issues can allow you, your team, and your collaborators to share and discuss proposals before and during their implementation.
However, they can be used for a variety of other purposes, customized to your needs and workflow.
Issues can have endless applications. Just to exemplify, these are
some cases for which creating issues are most used:
Issues are always associated with a specific project, but if you have multiple projects in a group,
you can also view all the issues collectively at the group level.
**Common use cases include:**
- Discussing the implementation of a new idea
- Submitting feature proposals
- Asking questions
- Reporting bugs and malfunction
- Obtaining support
- Tracking tasks and work status
- Accepting feature proposals, questions, support requests, or bug reports
- Elaborating new code implementations
See also the blog post "[Always start a discussion with an issue](https://about.gitlab.com/2016/03/03/start-with-an-issue/)".
### Keep private things private
For instance, let's assume you have a public project but want to start a discussion on something
you don't want to be public. With [Confidential Issues](#confidential-issues),
you can discuss private matters among the project members, and still keep
your project public, open to collaboration.
### Streamline collaboration
With [Multiple Assignees for Issues](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/project/issues/multiple_assignees_for_issues.html),
available in [GitLab Starter](https://about.gitlab.com/pricing/)
you can streamline collaboration and allow shared responsibilities to be clearly displayed.
All assignees are shown across your workflows and receive notifications (as they
would as single assignees), simplifying communication and ownership.
### Consistent collaboration
Create [issue templates](#issue-templates) to make collaboration consistent and
containing all information you need. For example, you can create a template
for feature proposals and another one for bug reports.
## Issue Tracker
The Issue Tracker is the collection of opened and closed issues created in a project.
It is available for all projects, from the moment the project is created.
Find the issue tracker by navigating to your **Project's homepage** > **Issues**.
### Issues per project
When you access your project's issues, GitLab will present them in a list,
and you can use the tabs available to quickly filter by open and closed issues.
You can also [search and filter](../../search/index.md#issues-and-merge-requests-per-project) the results more deeply with GitLab's search capacities.
### Issues per group
View issues in all projects in the group, including all projects of all descendant subgroups of the group. Navigate to **Group > Issues** to view these issues. This view also has the open and closed issues tabs.
## GitLab Issues Functionalities
The image bellow illustrates how an issue looks like:
## Parts of an issue
Issues contain a variety of content and metadata, enabling a large range of flexibility in how they are used. Each issue can contain the following attributes, though some items may remain unset.
<tableclass="borderless-table fixed-table">
<tr>
<td>
<ul>
<li>Content</li>
<ul>
<li>Title</li>
<li>Description and tasks</li>
<li>Comments and other activity</li>
</ul>
<li>People</li>
<ul>
<li>Author</li>
<li>Assignee(s)</li>
</ul>
<li>State</li>
<ul>
<li>Status (open/closed)</li>
<li>Confidentiality</li>
<li>Tasks (completed vs. outstanding)</li>
</ul>
</ul>
</td>
<td>
<ul>
<li>Planning and tracking</li>
<ul>
<li>Milestone</li>
<li>Due date</li>
<li>Weight</li>
<li>Time tracking</li>
<li>Labels</li>
<li>Votes</li>
<li>Reaction emoji</li>
<li>Linked issues</li>
<li>Assigned epic</li>
<li>Unique issue number and URL</li>
</ul>
</ul>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
## Viewing and managing issues
While you can view and manage the full detail of an issue at its URL, you can also work with multiple issues at a time using the Issues List, Issue Boards, Epics **[ULTIMATE]**, and issue references.
### Issue page
Learn more about it on the [GitLab Issues Functionalities documentation](issues_functionalities.md).
## New issue
On an issue’s page, you can view all aspects of the issue, and you can also modify them if you you have the necessary [permissions](../../permissions.md).
Read through the [documentation on creating issues](create_new_issue.md).
For more information, see the [Issue Functionalities](issues_functionalities.md) page.
## Closing issues
### Issues list
Learn distinct ways to [close issues](closing_issues.md) in GitLab.
## Moving issues
Read through the [documentation on moving issues](moving_issues.md).
## Deleting issues
Read through the [documentation on deleting issues](deleting_issues.md)
On the Issues List, you can view all issues in the current project, or from multiple projects when opening the Issues List from the higher-level group context. Filter the issue list by [any search query](../../search/index.md#issues-and-merge-requests-per-project) and/or specific metadata, such as label(s), assignees(s), status, and more. From this view, you can also make certain changes [in bulk](../bulk_editing.md) to the displayed issues.
## Create a merge request from an issue
For more information, see the [Issue Functioinalities](issues_functionalities.md) page.
Learn more about it on the [GitLab Issues Functionalities documentation](issues_functionalities.md#18-new-merge-request).
### Issue boards
## Search for an issue
Learn how to [find an issue](../../search/index.md) by searching for and filtering them.
Issue boards are Kanban boards with columns that display issues based on their labels or their assignees**[PREMIUM]**. They offer the flexibility to manage issues using highly customizable workflows.
## Advanced features
You can reorder issues within a column, or drag an issue card to another column; its associated label or assignee will change to match that of the new column. The entire board can also be filtered to only include issues from a certain milestone or an overarching label.
### Confidential Issues
For more information, see the [Issue Boards](../issue_board.md) page.
Whenever you want to keep the discussion presented in a
issue within your team only, you can make that
[issue confidential](confidential_issues.md). Even if your project
is public, that issue will be preserved. The browser will
respond with a 404 error whenever someone who is not a project
member with at least [Reporter level](../../permissions.md#project-members-permissions) tries to
access that issue's URL.
### Epics **[ULTIMATE]**
Learn more about them on the [confidential issues documentation](confidential_issues.md).
Epics let you manage your portfolio of projects more efficiently and with less effort by tracking groups of issues that share a theme, across projects and milestones.
### Issue templates
For more information, see the [Epics](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/group/epics/) page.
Create templates for every new issue. They will be available from
the dropdown menu **Choose a template** when you create a new issue:
### Related issues **[STARTER]**
You can mark two issues as related, so that when viewing each one, the other is always listed in its Related Issues section. This can help display important context, such as past work, dependencies, or duplicates.
Learn more about them on the [issue templates documentation](../../project/description_templates.md#creating-issue-templates).
For more information, see [Related Issues](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/project/issues/related_issues.html).
### Crosslinking issues
Learn more about [crosslinking](crosslinking_issues.md) issues and merge requests.
### Issue Board
The [GitLab Issue Board](https://about.gitlab.com/features/issueboard/) is a way to
enhance your workflow by organizing and prioritizing issues in GitLab.
Find GitLab Issue Boards by navigating to your **Project's Dashboard** > **Issues** > **Board**.
Read through the documentation for [Issue Boards](../issue_board.md)
to find out more about this feature.
With [GitLab Starter](https://about.gitlab.com/pricing/), you can also
create various boards per project with [Multiple Issue Boards](../issue_board.html#multiple-issue-boards-starter).
### Import Issues from CSV
You can import a CSV file containing issue titles and descriptions to create
a batch of issues simultaneously.
When you navigate to the Issues list page, an import button is displayed.
For further details, see [Importing issues from CSV](csv_import.md)
### External Issue Tracker
Alternatively to GitLab's built-in Issue Tracker, you can also use an [external
tracker](../../../integration/external-issue-tracker.md) such as Jira, Redmine,
YouTrack, or Bugzilla.
### Issue API
When you reference an issue from another issue or merge request by including its URL or ID, the referenced issue displays a message in the Activity stream about the reference, with a link to the other issue or MR.
See the [API documentation](../../../api/issues.md).
For more information, see [Crosslinking issues](crosslinking_issues.md).
### Bulk editing issues
## Issue actions
See the [bulk editing issues](../../project/bulk_editing.md) page.
-[Create an issue](create_new_issue.md)
-[Create an issue from a template](../../project/description_templates.md#using-the-templates)
-[Close an issue](closing_issues.md)
-[Move an issue](moving_issues.md)
-[Delete an issue](deleting_issues.md)
-[Create a merge request from an issue](issues_functionalities.md#18-new-merge-request)
### Similar issues
## Advanced issue management
See the [similar issues](similar_issues.md) page.
-[Bulk edit issues](../bulk_editing.md) - From the Issues List, select multiple issues in order to change their status, assignee, milestone, or labels in bulk.
