Attio attribute types on the card
The card on a Jira issue is a list of fields and one link. Every row is an attribute somebody chose in project settings, and how its value is printed is decided by that attribute's type in Attio, not by anything in Jira. This page is the reference for that.
There is nothing to configure here. It is what to expect when you put a particular attribute on the card, and which of your CRM's values will read well in a narrow sidebar and which will not.
#One row per attribute, in the order somebody chose
The card shows one row for each attribute a project administrator picked, in the order they arranged them, never in Attio's own order. The row's label is the attribute's live title in Attio, so renaming an attribute in Attio changes the label on the card without anyone revisiting project settings.
The card has no heading and no title bar, so the record's own name appears only if the name attribute is one of the chosen fields. An attribute the record has no value for still gets a row: its label, with "None" beneath it. A row that vanished would read as "this customer has no such field" when the truth is that the field is empty.
#What each attribute type prints
The type names in the first column are the ones the settings screens show beside each attribute, so an attribute you are looking at in the Fields list can be found here by the same word.
Attribute type | What the card prints | Worth knowing |
|---|---|---|
Text | The text as written. | A value that is a plain web address becomes a link to itself. |
Number | The number, formatted for the reader's locale. | |
Checkbox | "Yes" or "No". | A false value is printed rather than treated as empty. An attribute nobody has answered at all is empty, and reads "None". |
Currency | The amount with its currency, formatted for the reader's locale. | A currency code the reader's browser cannot format prints as a plain number with the code beside it rather than being dropped. |
Date | The calendar date, in a medium style for the reader's locale. | An Attio date carries no time zone, so it is the day somebody typed. A reader west of Greenwich is not shown the day before. |
Timestamp | The date with a short time, for the reader's locale. | |
Rating | Words, for example "4 of 5". | There are no star glyphs. |
Status | The option's title. | |
Select | The option's title. | A multi-select produces several values in the same row, and then follows the rules for several values below. |
Linked record | The linked record's name, which opens that record in Attio. | With attributes chosen under it, the reference is drawn as a small bounded card inside the value, or kept behind the link and revealed on hover. With nothing chosen under it, it stays a plain link. |
Person in Attio | "Workspace member" in italics, or "Attio" where the action was Attio's own automation. | This version does not look the person's name up. See the gotchas below. |
Location | The address parts that are filled in, joined with commas on one line. | An address whose parts are all empty counts as no value, so the row reads "None" rather than a line of punctuation. |
Domain | The domain, linking to it over https. | |
The address, which opens a new mail message. | Announced to a screen reader as "Send email to" and the address. | |
Phone | The number, which starts a call. | Announced as "Call" and the number. |
Interaction | The kind of interaction and how long ago it was, for example "Calendar event, 3 days ago". | Hovering shows the exact date and time. Where only one half is known, only that half is printed. |
Name | The full name. |
Formatting follows the reader, not the workspace Numbers, currency amounts, dates and timestamps are formatted for the locale the card is running in. A European site sees European number and date formats without anybody configuring it, and two agents in different countries see the same value written two different ways.
#A field that holds more than one value
Multi-valued attributes are common in a CRM, and the card decides between two shapes by measuring the values themselves rather than by asking the attribute.
What the field holds | How the card draws it |
|---|---|
Several values, every one of them sixteen characters or shorter | Small bordered lozenges that wrap onto further lines, at exactly the same text size as any other value. |
Several values where any one is longer than that | A vertical list of full-width lines that wrap. Four long company names are not lozenge-shaped at any card width. |
More than eight values | The first eight, then a control reading "Show all" and the total, which expands the row in place. The expanded row offers "Show fewer". |
Several linked records | Always a vertical list, never lozenges. Linked records drawn as cards are given more space between them so two boxes do not read as one. |
No value at all | The label, with "None" beneath it at the same size as a real value. |
#Long values are folded, never cut
No value on the card loses characters. A single long value, a description or a note, is limited to four visible lines with a "Show more" control under it and "Show less" once expanded, but the clipping is visual only: find-in-page, copying and a screen reader reach the whole value whether it is folded or not. Long unbreakable strings such as web addresses and identifiers are broken across lines rather than widening the card.
The point at which a value gets folded follows the width the card has actually been given, so the same value can fold in a narrow sidebar and print in full on the wider activity tab. It is never below about eighty characters, so a value has to be genuinely long for the card it is in.
The expand controls name the field they belong to, so a reader meeting the fifth one on a card knows where they are: "Show more of Notes", "Show less of Notes", "Show all 12 Licences", "Show fewer Licences".
There is no refresh button on a working card A card that is showing values gives an agent no way to force a re-read. The answer is treated as fresh for fifteen minutes, so a value changed in Attio can take up to that long to reach an issue, on every ticket for that customer. An attribute renamed in Attio can take up to an hour to change its label. A "Try again" control appears only when the card has errored or is rate limited with nothing to show.
#Every link is handed to Jira
Nothing on the card is an ordinary web link. Each one is a button that hands the address to Jira to open, because the card runs in a sandboxed frame where a plain link would look clickable and do nothing. Linked values say where they go when read aloud: "Send email to" and the address, "Call" and the number, "Open" and the value "in Attio", or "Open" and the value "in a new tab".
A matched card ends with a hairline rule and one control at the bottom left reading "Open in Attio", which opens the matched record. It is there only when Attio gave the app a web address for that record.
#A few things worth knowing
Hovering an address tells you nothing new. A location value carries a tooltip holding the same one-line address that is already printed under the label, left over from a time when long addresses were shortened.
An attribute pointing at somebody in your Attio workspace, an owner or a creator, reads "Workspace member" rather than that person's name on this version, and hovering the italic value shows a raw internal identifier rather than an explanation. Only a value written by Attio's own automation is named, as "Attio".
Number, date, currency and relative-time wording all come from the reader's own machine. A value pasted from one agent's screen into a ticket may not match what the next agent sees, and "3 days ago" on an interaction is worded by the browser, not by this app.
#Related
Seventeen types, one rule: nothing on the card ever loses a character.
