How to make a workflow active in Jira

[Sari]

Hello! 

I can't make a workflow active  and the instructions reported are useless. 
Could you please help me? 
Thanks!

[Hamza Chundrigar]

Hi Sari,

Are you looking to add an inactive workflow to your existing project's workflow scheme?

If yes, please try the following steps (I've also added screenshots for a dummy project I have for visual reference):

• Go into your desired project
• Click "Project Settings" in the bottom left of your project's sidebar
• Under project settings > click Workflows

You'll see this screen (as shown in the screenshot below). Click on "Add Workflow" > select "Add Existing"

From there you'll be select an inactive workflow on the left for your project:

               

Once you've selected the workflow you would like to add > Click Next > and then Assign Issue Types to the selected workflow.

                          

Click Finish > and then hit Publish to save your changes. This will activate your workflow and associate it with the project's workflow scheme.

Best regards,
Hamza

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

The instructions are phrased to try to answer the question "how do I make a workflow active", but that question comes from a misunderstanding of what "active" means, so the docs are not actually that helpful.

You do not "activate a workflow".  The active flag is not something you set, it is a reporting function - when set, it is telling you that the workflow is in use in at least one active workflow scheme.  You can't set it directly, it's derived from the other settings.

To make a workflow look active, you have to associate it with at least one issue type (or the default) in a workflow scheme, and then migrate a project over to using that workflow scheme.

In your screenshot, tick at least one of the issue type (or default) boxes to start using your PPD workflow.  Save the changes.  Then you may need to go apply that scheme to a project.

Jira will walk you through the required migration steps when you save the changes (there may be none, it will only ask questions when you're changing between workflows where it can't retain the status of existing issues - for example, old workflow has a status of "doing" and the new one does not - you'll probably want to tell it to change all the "doing" issues to "in progress")