Removing Status from JWM Company Managed Project

Question

I am working on a project in JIRA Work Management and noticed that I could not modify an active project workflow to remove a status.  It is forcing me to make a copy of the workflow before making this change.

I am new to JWM and used to how JIRA Software DC works, where the system makes a draft copy, and you can remove and modify the workflow as needed and save the original as a draft.

Is this normal behavior?  The preference would be to have functionality similar to JIRA Software DC.  Does JIRA Cloud work similarly to JWM?

Brian Taylor · Answer

Thank you - I agree with the comments in the link you provided.  This should not be this hard and cumbersome.  This ability is in JIRA DC and should have been applied to the latest and greatest version if JIRA Cloud.

Nic Brough -Adaptavist- · Answer

Yes, all company-managed projects work off workflows that you can't edit in certain ways.

The reason for this is simple - when you remove a status from a workflow, you're going to need to migrate all the issues using that workflow to another valid status as soon as you remove it.  A workflow could be being used in millions of places, and no-one would want to have to do the migration every time they were making a minor change (that they might not actually go through with) to a workflow.  Jira postpones it to the application of the workflow to the issues, but to do that, it has to stop you editing an active workflow.

Dave Mathijs · Answer

Hi @Brian Taylor , yes, unfortunately, this is normal behaviour.

Have a look at this article: https://community.atlassian.com/t5/Jira-articles/Editing-a-workflow-when-it-shows-You-cannot-perform-this/ba-p/1854392#M5660