A hook for a status/column transition (on a Scrum or Kanban board)?

Question

Kanban prescribes not to move an issue to the next column when it's done, but just mark it as DONE in the current column. The DONE issue will be moved to the next column when necessary.

I'm looking for a way to do it (on a Scrum or Kanban board). I can't use additional statuses (threre's no way to modify our current Jira project's workflow).

One possiblity is to flag an issue. But this approach has a disadvantage - one who will be moving the issue will have to remeber to unflag it.

Is it possible to somehow mark an issue in the way that this mark will automatically removed/discarded when the issue transitions to another column?

For example, I'd be able to achieve the goal using some property that:

* is removed/discarded when an issue transitions to another column
* can be used in a Query (then I could change the card's color based on whether this property is ON or OFF)

Do you have any ideas?

Nic Brough -Adaptavist- · Answer

Yes, post-functions are the place to do it.

You can do it per-project, if you're using different workflows in the projects.

You have to be an admin to make these changes, so you'll need to get admin access, or get your admins to make the changes for you.

aleksey.shishkin · Answer

Thank you! If I got it right, I need to use a post-function? Can this be done on per-project basis? My Jira project uses a workflow that is shared among many other Jira projects in our company and I can not modify this workflow. I need a workaround that doesn't require changing the current Jira workflow diagram (I'm an Administrator of my project, but I'm not a Jira admin).

Nic Brough -Adaptavist- · Answer

Um, not quite, Kanban clearly has a "done" column that you move issues to when they are done.  I'm not sure what you're reading, but everything I can find on Kanban marks something "done" by moving it into the "done" column (I've not done a lot of training on Kanban though, I could well be missing something, but given that I've never seen that suggestion before, I suspect it might be incorrect).  Releases and further are another story of course - just because it's "done" in Kanban doesn't mean "it's in production".

But, to try to answer the question to see if we can make it work the way you want, yes, you can get quite close.

You're right on flagging - you'll need a field that holds a yes or no answer.  You might look at Jira's standard "resolution".  Plain Jira (not Software with boards) considers an issue "done" if a resolution is set, irrespective of status (and hence column).  It does not care what the value is, it is either

* empty (null in the database) = unresolved
* filled (has any value in the database at all) = resolved

You could also do that easily with a "multi-check box" field.  Those can offer simple tick-boxes to people, but you could only offer one option.  Ticked = done, not ticked (null again) = not done.

My instinct is to use resolution here, because you can set and un-set that without adding any new apps, and plain Jira will respect your "definition of done".  Not only will plain Jira reporting work, but off the shelf, Jira has a workflow post-function called "set field" - you can select "resolution for that, and then set it to one of the values, or <none>, which clears it out (i.e. sets it back to null).  Note that post-functions apply to transitions - these are change of status, and for the most simple board, that is the same as "move column", but it might not be a 1:1 mapping of "one status = one column", you may have several status in columns, so you might need to add several post-functions.

I think you're a bit stuck on the "done" thing on the boards though.  Even if you could add other status, Jira Software boards, Scrum and Kanban, both define "done" as "in the last column".