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P4 Server Administration Documentation | 2026.1

# The Presets field

All fields with a field type of anything other than `optional` require default values. To assign a default value to a field, create a line in the jobspec form under `Presets` consisting of the field name to which you’re assigning the default value. Any single-line string can be used as a default value.

The following variables are available for use as default values.

Variable | Value
--- | ---
`$user` | The P4 Server user creating the job, as specified by the `P4USER` environment variable, or as overridden with `p4 -u `username` job`.
`$now` | The date and time at the moment the job is saved.
`$blank` | The text `<enter description here>`. When users enter jobs, any fields in your jobspec with a preset of `$blank` must be filled in by the user before the job is added to the system.

The lines in the `Presets` field for the standard jobs template are:

    Presets:
          Status open
          User $user
          Date $now
          Description $blank

## Using Presets: to change default fix status

The `Presets:` entry for the job status field (field 102) has a special syntax for providing a default fix status for `p4 fix`, `p4 change -s`, and `p4 submit -s`.

If `completed` is in a `select` setting in the `Values` field of p4 jobspec, and if we want the default fix status to be completed, we can use /completed as follows:

    Presets:
          Status open,fix/completed

If we wanted to change the default behavior of `p4 fix`, `p4 change`, and `p4 submit` to leave job status unchanged after fixing a job or submitting a changelist, we could use `/same` as follows:

    Presets:
          Status open,fix/same

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