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Multiple "Done" statuses vs "Resolution" best practices

Benjamin Peikes

Currently we lean towards having a single "Done" status, and using "Resolution" to specify the reason it's done. For example:
Resolution could be "Won't Do", but the status is "Done"
or
Resolution could be "Deployed", but the status is "Done"

Considering switching to using multiple "Done" statuses, like
"Deployed"
"Won't Do"
etc

I guess the question is why even have "Resolution", or are Resolutions really meant for Service Desk work items?

Accepted answers

All comments

Trudy P Claspill

Hello @Benjamin Peikes

Did you find this KB from Atlassian?

https://support.atlassian.com/jira/kb/best-practices-on-using-the-resolution-field-in-jira-cloud/

And this video (not from Atlassian)?

Status vs Resolution in Jira – How to Set Resolution the Easy Way

One reason to have and use the Resolution field is that Jira uses that field as the basis for the Created vs. Resolved reports.

In the environments I have managed we have used "Closed" as the final status as a more generic term to indicate no additional work is being done without implying that any work was ever actually completed. We then use Resolution to indicate whether or not the work is Completed or interrupted/never done (Cancelled, Won't Do, Not Bug, Rejected).

We try to keep the number of Status values and the number of Resolution values low to reduce maintenance and complexity in reporting.

Rohit Utukuri

Hi @Benjamin Peikes

Jira uses resolution field value to determine if the issue/work item is resolved. Even if the status has been set to "Done" or "Won't Do" if the StatusCategory field is not set to "Done", Jira will still treat the issue as unresolved.

For additional information review the link - https://support.atlassian.com/jira/kb/best-practices-on-using-the-resolution-field-in-jira-cloud/

Trudy P Claspill

Hello @Rohit Utukuri

Your answer is partially incorrect.

StatusCategory is separate from Resolution and does not determine whether or not Jira considers an issue "resolved".

StatusCategory is used to identify the Category to which a give Status value belongs. There are three StatusCategory values which are color coded as follows:

StatusCategory	Color
To Do	gray
In Progress	blue
Done	green

Each Status value belongs to one of the Status Categories.

Just as Status is not used by Jira to determine that an item is "resolved" so to StatusCategory is not used by Jira to determine that an item is "resolved".

Perhaps your use of "StatusCategory" was a typo and you meant to say "Resolution", given that your first sentence was correct.

Benjamin Peikes

The problem with a single "Done" or "Closed" status, is that Automation rules dont work when there are multiple transitions that can take you to your "Done" or "Closed" status. Automation rules will:
* Pick an arbitrary transition as long as it goes from current status to the target status
* Ignore any restrictions on the transition

For instance, we have a transition called "Won't Do" that goes from any status to "Done". Currently this transition will bring up a "Won't Do" screen to take a comment so we can require one, and it automatically sets the Resolution to "Won't Do".

The issue is we have is regarding an automation we use. We have a status called "Work Completed", and we want to transition these issues to "Done" when they get deployed. We have an automation rule to do it, but because automation rules only can pick a destination Status, not a transaction, the automation rule can pick the "Won't Do" transition, which requires a screen and a comment. This makes the automation rule fail.

Benjamin Peikes

We do use the resolution field. That has it's own issues, namely that resolutions are global, which is completely ridiculous given service desk items, bugs and new features should have completely different resolutions.

It may be that you should never have a screen that allows a user to set a resolution, it should always be set by the transition.

Trudy P Claspill

In the Transition Work Item action there is an options for selecting the specific transition you want to use.

Screenshot 2025-12-31 at 9.19.27 AM.png

Rohit Utukuri

Thank you @Trudy P Claspill

Yes, I meant to say Resolution.

John Funk

Hi Benjamin,

I tend to use the multiple Done status category. Reason is that it more flexible/powerful for reporting purposes in my opinion. I don't really have data to back that up, but it just feels that way to me.

And you can control things better with Conditions and Validations on the separate transitions.

Also, it seems to be easier for the user because they see the transitions in the dropdown when they want to close the ticket and it makes more sense for them than to just move everything to Done.

But both work fine.

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