Clarification on the 'Resolution' parameter

[Holloway Winfred]

When reading "Building an awesome Jira workflow: concepts and examples" (Building an awesome Jira workflow: concepts and examples (atlassian.com)), it states "You must set a resolution when an issue moves from an unresolved state to a resolved  state. Likewise, resolution needs to be removed if an issue flows back into an unresolved state."

Does removing the resolution mean clearing it? Or creating and setting it to a specific value, like "empty"?   Will having the resolution be cleared (actually empty) when in an unresolved state in the workflow cause any issues or side-effects in Jira?  

I'm guessing it should be 'empty' unless it is in a "Done" (or equivalent) status.  Is this correct?

[Nic Brough _Adaptavist_ · Accepted solution]

Yes, it needs to be "cleared".

In the database, the resolution field is always present, but holds either (a reference to) a resolution or it is empty, with the content described as "null" or empty.  It's not a string saying "nothing here", there really is nothing there, not even a byte, nybble or bit.

Empty, none, unresolved, not there, even the word "null" itself, etc - these are all not null and an issue with these values is resolved because the field is not null, it's got a value.

So yes, the resolution should be 'empty' unless it is in a "Done" (or equivalent) status.

In Jira UI, the best thing to do is use the built in post-function.  Edit transitions that go out of "done" status to "not done", adding a post function called "update field".  It will ask you which field (resolution) and offer you a list of options (select the first one - "none").  When you save it, there's a bit of discontinuity - the post function will display "clear resolution" rather than "update resolution to none/empty/clear".

If in doubt, make a copy of the default (non deletable) default Jira workflow and edit that, it has the post-functions as examples.

[Holloway Winfred]

Thank you very much Nic. That clears it up nicely.  Very much appreciated.