WEEK 3 - What We Didn’t See: Hidden Conditions & Ghost Post-Functions

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What this episode covers

• Why workflows behaved differently even after SLAs were fixed
• How post-functions can be dangerous
• Why old workflow logic resurfaces after cleanup
• How we fixed it without triggering another incident

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Where We Left Off

Week 2 ended with relief.

• SLAs were green again.
• Escalations stopped firing randomly.
• Support trusted dashboards once more.

And yet…

something still didn’t feel right.

During post-fix validation, we noticed tickets moving from

Work in Progress → Done, without agents remembering doing it.

No panic, just discomfort.

That’s usually how real problems begin.

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1. “Who Closed This?” - A Question Nobody Could Answer

We pulled issue histories.

Normally Jira tells the truth, even when it hurts.

This time:

• No automation comment
• No REST API call
• No bulk change record

Just:

Status changed: Work in Progress → Done

An agent looked genuinely worried.

“I didn’t close it. I was still working on it.”

At first, we assumed human error.

Then it happened again.

Different agents. Different queue.

This wasn’t behavior.

This was logic.

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2. The Workflow Looked Correct - And That Was the Problem

We opened the workflow editor.

Everything looked clean:

• Conditions present
• Validators enforced
• Required fields configured
• No auto-transition visible

According to the UI, this transition should not have succeeded.

And that’s when the realization hit:

The editor wasn’t lying - it just wasn’t telling the whole story.

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3. Post-Functions: That was Never Questioned

Yes, post-functions were not Questioned.

They always had been there, but ignored.

As they were old.

Very old.

Things like:

• Set Resolution
• Fire Issue Closed Event
• Clear Field Value
• Update Change History

No comments.

No documentation.

No one remembered why they existed.

They had survived:

• Workflow copies
• Project migrations
• Admin changes
• Partial cleanups

They weren’t hidden.

They were untouched.

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4. Execution Order Changed Everything

Post-functions execute in a strict order.

In this transition, the order was:

1. Clear resolution

2. Set resolution = Done

3. Fire “Issue Closed” event

4. Re-index issue

So even if:

A validation should block the transition

A required field was empty

…the post-functions executed after the click and forced closure anyway.

From an agent’s perspective:

They didn’t bypass rules

The workflow did it for them

That’s why tickets appeared to close on their own.

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5. Why Cleanup Triggered This Now

Before cleanup, these post-functions lived inside noisy workflows.

Once we:

• Removed duplicate statuses
• Simplified transitions
• Standardized resolution values

…the legacy logic became dominant.

The cleanup didn’t introduce bad behavior.

It exposed it.

The system behaved exactly as it was designed - years ago.

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6. The Risk No One Talks About

At this point, the concern wasn’t technical.

It was this:

• If workflows can silently override validations,
• what else is executing that no one fully understands?

Cleanup had crossed into risk management.

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7. Fixing It Without Creating Another Incident

The approach was deliberate:

• Exported every active workflow
• Reviewed post-functions transition by transition
• Identified which ones were required and which were legacy
• Removed auto-resolution logic carefully
• Reordered validation and post-function execution
• Tested changes in sandbox
• Rolled out project by project

After the fix:

• Tickets closed only when agents closed them
• Required fields stayed required
• SLAs behaved predictably
• Trust returned quietly

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The Unexpected Aftermath

A week later, Support returned again.

Not stressed.

Not angry.

Just confused.

“Ticket volume seems higher. Nothing is broken… but customers are raising more basic requests.”

Deflection dropped.

Self-service resolution dipped.

Workflows were correct now.

But something else had changed.

Something dependent on consistent resolution patterns.

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Tech Reality Check

The real danger is:

•   Lost context
•   Unknown execution order
•   Legacy logic surviving cleanup
•   Undocumented dependencies

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To Be Continued…

 WEEK 4 - When Fixing Workflows Broke Self-Service & Deflection

Read Week 2 here - https://community.atlassian.com/forums/Jira-Cloud-Admins-articles/WEEK-2-The-JSM-Meltdown-When-SLAs-Started-Bleeding-Red/ba-p/3163150

[Ajay _view26_]

Hi @Akhand Pratap Singh , Nice read.. I would recommend you to add links to the previous articles as well for each of your article..