Help! Workflows are so annoying

[Mariam]

How do I add transitions in already existing workflows? Every time I try, it says "You cannot perform this operation on a draft workflow.". After publishing the workflow and trying again, it doesn't work, cause as soon as I edit it, it becomes a draft.

Help!!

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

I'm going to take a guess that you've run into a long standing and annoying flaw in thw workflow editor.

The draft edit can not add transitions to a step (status) that does not already have outgoing transistions.  There's a long essay possible on where the problem is, but Atlassian have said that fixing it is way down the priority list (probably meaning never going to get fixed) because there's a straightforward workaround and it only affects a small number of people (admins who have never seen the problem before, or inherited affected workflows from others)

One quick thing to try which seems to help sometimes:  Add a global transition into one of the other steps in the workflow.  For example All -> Open.  Then re-try adding the transition you want to add.  (Remove the all -> open later)

If that does not help, then you will need to

• Copy the workflow to a new copy
• Add your transition in the new copy (the editor for unassociated workflow does not have this bug)
• Amend all the workflow schemes using the old workflow, swapping it out for the new one

[Mariam]

thank you for the info. I'll try your suggestion

[Ste Wright]

Hi Mariam,

This might be related to a known issue in the workflow editor - see this answer which has some great detail on this!

If this is the case, you will need to copy the active workflow, make your modifications and then replace the existing workflow in the workflow scheme.

Ste

[Mariam]

thank you for responding! I'll check the case now