Help with the best approach to setting up Jira workflows

Question

The main thing not clear to me at the moment is what detail to take the workflows to for issue types and sub-tasks and what knock on effects this has in the system.  I would very much appreciate any guidance on this as I don't want to set off down the wrong road from the beginning!

For example, I have one overall software project object defined in Jira, and sub objects defined such as 'New feature', 'Bug' etc within this.

Should I set up an overall workflow for the 'New feature' issue type which will relate to a whole project process right through scope iteration, specification iteration, sign off, build, test and release or define a high-level workflow for 'New feature' and create workflow schemes for sub-tasks such as 'Specification'?

Hope you can point me in the right direction!

Chris Morphew1 · Answer

Hi Nic, thanks for your reply.

I will have another think about these after what you have suggested.  It does seem strange to me that there aren't any templates available online at least to get people started (or perhaps you could select a scheme as part of the install process relevant for SDLC or website development).

One thing that may also be an issue with selecting just one overall 'project' object is that there will be no dashboard view for each sub-project (new features) so the dashboard will just show overall whats going on with everything - I wonder if this will also affect reporting functionality?

Nic Brough -Adaptavist- · Answer

That looks fine to me, with two caveats.  You have already mentioned both things I'd question though!

First, I'd probably revise the transitions slightly - think of the status as a "useful name for the current state of an issue" and the transition labels as "an action to do to move from one state to another" - many transitions I see are labelled in a way to make it clear to the end use that clicking them will do to the status.

You might also be short of a few transitions - think about any cases where something might move backwards in the process, possibly because something was missed in review or something external changes and triggers a rethink.

Secondly, yes, you definitely want more than one workflow.  The workflow you've outlined probably won't work for test plans (or bugs, if you decide you need them)

Chris Morphew1 · Answer

Anyone have any insight for me?  Or perhaps some example workflows for SDLC?