Jira status' that are not in use

[Bryan Dsylva]

Hi All,

I have JIRA project that has too many status. I would like to clean these up, but would like to know:

Is there a way I can find out which status' have not been used / when the last time they were used?

Are there any impacts to removing status, i.e. on existing tickets that might have those status?

Are there any other considerations that IU need to make prior to removing status?

What is the best way to remove the status' that I no longer want?

[Walter Buggenhout · Accepted solution]

Hi @Bryan Dsylva and welcome to the Community!

Is this a team managed or a company managed project?

Statuses for company managed projects are managed centrally in Jira. You can find them (if you have admin permissions) from Jira settings > Issues > Statuses. Statuses that are not being used in any workflows will have a mention "No associated workflows" next to them and a delete link you can click to remove them altogether. Doing this will have no impact. To remove statuses that are being used in workflows that are no longer active, you need to delete the inactive workflows themselves first.

In team managed projects, statuses are not managed centrally, but embedded in workflows linked to issue types. They are specific to each project. To remove statuses there, you actually need to edit the workflows of the issue types in each project's settings. For more details, see this support article.

Hope this helps! 

[Bryan Dsylva]

Hi Walter, thanks for the kind welcome and the reply!

This is a company managed project. Thanksfor the information, ive found what you have advised and its very helpful.

As this shows all projects, is there a way to limit it to just the project that I am using? 

[Walter Buggenhout]

In company managed projects, configurations are shared among projects through schemes.

A status is linked to one/more projects as follows:

1. a status belongs to a workflow
2. a workflow can be included in one or more workflow schemes
3. a workflow scheme is linked to one or more projects

The workflow scheme I mentioned under (3) specifies the link between one/more workflows and the issue types used in the project(s) connected to the workflow scheme(s).

When you start from a specific Jira project and navigate to Project Settings > Workflows, you will land on a page that clearly mentions the workflow scheme that your project is using. If other projects are using that same scheme (and share settings as a consequence), you will see that just below the workflow scheme's name.

If you have admin rights, there will be links to either edit workflows in your workflow scheme (called edit workflow) or to navigate to the overview page of Workflow Schemes. If you edit a workflow that is shared with other projects, be aware that the change is applied to all projects where it is being used.

[Bryan Dsylva]

Thank you again Walter, this helps tremdously!