Jira Image of the Day: Resolution is Empty Query

[#1]

Concept Relates To

Application Type	Jira (Jira Work Management and Jira Software), Jira Service Management, Jira Core
Deployment Type	Jira Cloud, Jira Server, Jira Data Center

What is shown?

A list of Jira work items that do not have resolutions.

Visit: Filters > Search work items

What can we learn?

A resolution answers the question: “How or why is work completed for an issue?” Status and resolution are commonly confused. A status tells you where in the workflow an issue is. A resolution tells you why. Some common resolution values include: Done, Won’t Do, Duplicate, and Declined. For example, an issue is in the done status because all work is “done”. Or an issue is in the done status because the organization decided we “won’t” do the work. You may have additional selections in your application depending on when it was created or if other custom values were added by Jira administrators.

From Jira’s perspective, a work item is not resolved until the resolution field has a value. This is true regardless of an issue’s current status.

In the screenshot example, it’s expected that issues in statuses like “In Progress” and “To Do” don’t have resolutions. BUT, you should periodically check that issues that are resolved or nearing their final statuses have resolutions set. Do this with a simple JQL query like:

statusCategory = done and resolution is empty

This query should return zero issues. If results are returned, there are two actions you should take:

1. To address future issues: Edit the workflows for those work types. Use a transition screen to ask the user to select a resolution value (recommended) or use a post function to set a value in the background.

2. To address existing issues: Set a resolution for the work items returned in the query. You can’t edit the resolution field like other fields so you’ll either need to:

   1. transition them back through the (previously fixed) workflow,

   2. create a (temporary) looping transition that doesn’t change the status but sets the resolution with a post function,

   3. or use a third-party app like ScriptRunner for Jira.

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[Matt Doar _Adaptavist_]

Sometimes I think of Resolution values as "sub statuses" of Done.