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Can automation override a workflow transition?

Kevin Dickson_o2tc47

I have quite a complex workflow (don't ask!) that includes an "Impediment" status with "all" statuses able to be moved to it.
All other statuses have to follow a single transition, e.g. ready for dev -> in dev -> code review - ready for QA, etc.

However, I would like for the items in the impediment status to be able to be moved back to their original status, thus overriding the workflow transitions.

The only way I can do this currently is to create transitions from impediment to each status, or (the obvious way) make all statuses able to be transitioned to all other statuses.

I've used https://confluence.atlassian.com/jirakb/how-to-transition-to-the-previous-status-of-an-issue-using-automation-rules-in-jira-1236599919.html to capture the previous status - a very useful link!!

But, my question is, how to use this to allow the assignee to move the item out of the Impediment status and back to it's last status, when the workflow transitions are so strict.

I've created an example workflow to show how this is currently set up - used a simple workflow so as not to confuse the issue.

And thanks in advance everyone!

Sample workflow.png

Accepted answers

Michael Wohlgemuth

Hello Kevin,

without transition to the statuses from which the issue came, you cannot transition it back i believe. Not with and not without automation.

Since all the transition lines would'nt be pretty, and I'm one of the people bothered by this, i would probably create "any status" transitions to all of the statuses, but limit these with the help of a condition to "The Issue's previous Status (immediately before the current Status) must be Impediment."

That way, the transitions are only visible if the issue is in Impediment.

Then these can be executed by automations or by hand.

Guido Scollo

Hi Kevin,

it is not possible to transition an issue with automation rules if the transition from a status to another does not extist in the workflow. But you can add this back transition with the condition that the transition is visible only from the user actor of the automation rule. If you use a fixed user as the actor and not the user that trigger the rule, the transition will be visible only to that user.