Jira Service Desk - status definitions?

[mark hewitt]

There are a large number of 'default' statuses offered within JSD - but I can't find definitions for them.

It would be helpful to know what the 'default definitions' are as it could suggest how they might be best used and might also indicate how they affect the operation of the system.

Thanks for any assistance,

Mark

[Nic Brough _Adaptavist_ · Accepted solution]

Most of the status names are self-described to be fair.

• Waiting for customer
• Waiting for support
• In progress
• Cancelled
• Resolved
• Closed
• Pending

There's not a lot more to say about most of them, I'd say 5/7 are completely clear, and would only question Pending and the difference between Resolved and Closed.  

But you should read the names in the context of the workflow.  In this case, I'm assuming the JSD workflow at https://support.atlassian.com/jira-cloud-administration/docs/work-with-issue-workflows/ where Resolved means "we've fixed/done it" and Closed is "Customer accepts that it is fixed/done", and Pending isn't too clear that "we know we need to work on it, but no-one actively is yet"

Some of those meanings may change in different workflows.

As for the status effect on the system - the status alone is nothing more than an indicator of where an issue is in the process, and the only thing they really carry is the colour, which is used in a couple of places to group issues in reports. There are no special status or status that makes things work differently. 

Until you configure the workflow, reports or boards to make them different.  On a board, you will choose one or more status to be in the last column, making the issue "done" as far as the process is concerned.  In workflows. you can add properties and transition functions that will make the status behave differently.  But there's nothing special about any of the off-the-shelf status.

[mark hewitt]

Thanks Nic, I appreciate I was being pedantic (but have been caught out before!).

Key point is we can we can use them flexibly within our own context and won't create any problems.

Thanks for your rapid response,

Mark

[Nic Brough _Adaptavist_]

I did not see any pedantic points in your question, and it seemed like a perfectly good question, especially as I have never seen anything in Atlassian docs that attempts to explain any of the default status names.

I know I did not quite answer the question directly, with a list of explanations, but I wanted to point out that in some cases, you need the context of the process to fully understand what they mean.  Resolved was the good example - I've seen some workflows that don't have other "closed" type status, "resolved" is the end of their process, so it has a different meaning to the one I've given for the default JSD workflow!