What happens to the existing issues when a project workflow is updated?

[Monica Vijaywargi]

Hi Community,

I am fairly new to Jira. I am trying to update an existing project workflow. I added a new inactive workflow by choosing Issues from the settings icon followed by clicking on the workflow tab. I added and deleted statuses from the existing workflow. I did it this way as I was not able to remove a status if I opened the existing workflow in draft mode. My question is if I update a project with a new workflow then what happens to the existing issues/tickets? Will all the tickets be migrated to this new project?

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist- · Accepted solution]

Yes, the issues will be "migrated", but that has less effect than it sounds.

Jira will compare the new workflow with the current status of the issues.  If the new workflow is missing a status that the issues have, then you will be asked which status in the new workflow you want to replace it with, and the issue will change.

So, possibly nothing will change other than how the issues flow.  The only "loss" is if you have issues in the status you are removing, they'll have to take on another status.

[Monica Vijaywargi]

Hi, thank you such a quick response.

is it the case for open issues? or both open and closed issues?

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

Yes, your removed status doesn't exist for the issues any more, they have to move to another one in the new workflow.

[Monica Vijaywargi]

Thank you.