📓 Editing Active Jira Workflows - CliffsNotes Edition...

[#1]

Remember those book reports you had to write in high school English, usually based on some really long, ancient novel? (Wuthering Heights comes to mind for me! 😢) How did you power through, did you: A - Watch the movie B - Read the CliffNotes C - Actually read the book? (It’s OK, you don’t have to tell me…) In the spirit of working smarter and not harder, I wanted to share a quick overview of the steps to edit a Jira workflow that is currently in use for a company-managed project. And because we all learn differently, here are all three versions: watch the movie, skim the CliffNotes, AND read the book!

🎥 Watch the movie:

Watch the video ↗️

🗒️ Read the CliffNotes:

Here's a quick summary of the process:

• In the Jira admin settings, create a copy of your workflow
• Associate your project with the workflow copy, which makes the original workflow inactive

💡 Important note: Check to see if your workflow is being used by multiple Jira projects. If that’s the case, you will need to associate ALL the projects that use this workflow with the copy and then associate them all back to the original once your edits are done.

• Make all edits to the original workflow as needed
• Associate the project back with the original workflow
• Delete the workflow copy
• ✅ Done!

📚 Read the book:

For those that want all the details, here are the steps you'll need to edit an active Jira workflow for a company-managed project:

• Go to your Jira project and note the workflow name
• Open a new browser tab. You'll be switching back and forth between Jira admin settings and your project settings, so multiple tabs just makes things easier!
• Go to Settings - upper right (⚙️) and then Work Items
• Click on Workflows, on the left
• Search for the workflow for your company-managed project.
• Click the <...> to copy the workflow. Pro tip: Put a 1 in front of the copied workflow name.
  
   
  
  
• Next, we need to configure your project to use the new copy of your workflow. That will make the original inactive so that you can edit it. To do that, go back to your Jira project (in your original browser tab) go to project settings → Workflow → Add workflow → Add existing:
  
  
• DON'T FORGET TO PUBLISH the change to the new workflow!
• Switch back to your Jira admin console browser tab and now you can edit the workflow, you'll need to switch to the Inactive workflows tab first:
  
  
  
  
• You can now edit your workflow to your heart's content! When you're done, just switch your project back to the original workflow, using the same steps as above. As before, don’t forget to publish!
• One final step to keep Jira clean - delete the now inactive workflow copy.

🍎 Extra Credit:

For those who want extra credit, here’s where you can learn more:

• How do company and team-managed workflows differ?
• Add, edit, and delete a work item workflow scheme
• Configurations overview: Understanding Jira schemes

🎓 Final grade:

So, how’d do you? Let us know in the comments if you got a passing grade!

[Mikael Sandberg]

Great article! Just note that this applies only to the old workflow editor, if you are using the new editor you can actually add new statuses and transitions without having to make a copy of the workflow first.

[Peggy Graham]

Thank you, I am glad you liked it! 😀

You are correct, I should have spelled out what edits you CAN vs CAN'T do with an active workflow.  Let me add that now!

You can add new statuses, change transitions to use different screens, and configure advanced transition options on the active workflow, no copy needed.

However, existing workflow steps cannot be deleted, and you can't edit the associated status for an existing step or add transitions, which is what I show in the Loom video.

Thank you @Mikael Sandberg !