Understand workflows
A Jira workflow is a set of statuses and transitions that a work item moves through. It typically represents a process within your organization. Workflows can be associated with particular spaces and, if you like, specific work types by using a workflow scheme. Read about workflow schemes
Jira has built-in workflows that you can use straight away. Or, you can start fresh and create your own. You can't edit the built-in workflows, but you can copy them and use them as a base to create your own.
Who can edit a workflow?
In company-managed spaces:
Site admins
Users with edit workflows permission for the space
In team-managed spaces:
Site admins
Space admins
Layout of the workflow editor
Toolbar: Add statuses, transitions, and rules to create your workflow.
Update or discard: Publish your changes instantly. If you’re not happy with your changes, you can always throw them away and return to your original workflow.
Sidebar: Select a status or transition from the diagram and edit its name, rules, properties, and more.
Diagram: Drag to move statuses and create transitions. Select a status or transition to see its details in the sidebar.
Name and spaces: Find spaces that use this workflow before publishing.
Statuses and transitions
Two concepts make up a workflow:
Statuses: the steps in your team’s process that describe the state of a task. Read more about statuses
Transitions: usually, how a piece of work moves between statuses.
For a work item to move between two statuses, a transition must exist.
Transitions are one-way. To move a work item back and forth, you need two separate transitions.
Transitions can also loop, so the work item's status stays the same. This is useful for opening transition screens or triggering actions without changing the status.
Read about creating workflow transitions, how to add rules to a transition, or editing statuses.
Active and inactive workflows
There are slight differences between editing an inactive and an active workflow. We restrict what you can do to an active workflow because it might impact other spaces and/or work types that also use the workflow.
Inactive workflow
This means no spaces are using the workflow. You can freely edit the workflow and any of its transitions. Read about how to activate a workflow.
Active workflow
An active workflow is defined as a workflow currently being used by one or more spaces. In the workflow editor, you can edit an active workflow, then select Update workflow to apply your changes, or choose to discard them.
You can’t edit a workflow’s name once it’s active, but you can copy the workflow, modify the copy, and then activate it. Read about managing workflows
In some rare cases, we might create a temporary workflow on your behalf to prevent problems while we perform updates. Find out how to activate a Jira workflow.
You can ask Rovo to explain a workflow or tell you how to transition work items from one status to another. Open Rovo Chat and enter /explain-workflow to try it out, or select Explain workflow from the status dropdown next time you’re viewing a work item.
What Rovo can see and show
Validation rules: Rovo can access workflow validation rules (including rules enabled by third-party apps), including any parameters in those rules that identify a user, group, permission, or custom field. It will show these parameters to anyone using this skill.
Condition rules: Rovo can also access workflow condition rules. However, it can’t access parameters in condition rules that identify a user, group, permission, or custom field, and this information won’t be shown to users.
Controlling what’s exposed: If you have a validation rule with parameters you don’t want exposed, you can either replace it with conditions or delete the validation rule.
Advanced workflow configuration
Go to the documentation about advanced workflow configuration.
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