Delete Workflow Schemes - how to make them inactive?

[Alex]

So we are very basic Jira users.  I'm sure Workflows have a good purpose, but frankly they are making my team and I nuts!  

We managed to make 3 boards with workflows and want to remove them all.  I see them listed as active, and I see how to edit or copy them, but how can I inactivate them so that the boards do not have a workflow at all?  End goal: Be able to create tasks in any column on each of these boards.  

Thanks in advance.  

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist- · Accepted solution]

The active/inactive flag is calculated, it's not something you set on a workflow.

Basically, active workflows are those configured to be used by one or more projects (via the "workflow scheme"), and inactive ones are not, so they can be deleted.

You can't have an issue (and therefore board or project) without a workflow.

You say "End goal: Be able to create tasks in any column on each of these boards. "

You can't do that.  Issue create has a single landing point, usually (but not necessarily) the first column.  Moving issues between columns is actually pushing the issues through workflow transitions so that the status changes.

If your goal is more "be able to move an issue from any column to any other column on the board", then you will need to define a workflow that is made up of a very simple set of status and transitions.  A very simple example would be three status (mapped into three columns, probably with the same name):

In format: Transition ->  Status

• All -> To-do
• All -> In-progress
• All -> Done

[John Funk]

Hi Alex, 

You make workflows in active by removing them from the Project they are attached to. Workflows aren't really attached to boards, they are attached to projects. Boards are connected to projects based on the filter that is used for the board. 

Therefore the workflow is associated with the board because of the connection through the project. 

What type of project is this? 

[Alex]

It's just a personal to-do list. 

I tried the custom template they have for that, but I can't figure how to add a backlog to it or customize it much at all.  I'm 100% aware that I'm using Jira to do what probably belongs in Trello, but the rest of our work is in Jira (I am the non-dev guy who works with Developers) so I was trying to keep things together.  

I've given up on the original issue and am now just trying to see if I can add additional columns to a to-do board.  (something like backlog)

My biggest frustration is that Jira has pretty much moved 100% to this new project "feature set" and not updated significant parts of their documentation.  

[John Funk]

Gotcha. Yeah, the Backlog thing is pretty much only going to work with Jira Software projects. You create a new board for the business project and use the Backlog with that. It just won't show up under the project. 

[Alex]

Thanks for that insight.  Honestly, I miss the old projects... Wish there was a way to clone them, because for some of the more rudimentary things we do, they were better.  

[John Funk]

The old projects are still there and you can create a project based on an existing project. And then you can combine that with automation to probably achieve what you want. 

[Alex]

I never thought about making a project based on a previous one!  That probably does it.  I'll tinker. 

Thanks so much for your prompt and informative answers.  You rock!

[John Funk]

Happy to help!