Transitioning

[Songezo Nkukwana]

Hi, I'm getting an error "You cannot perform this operation on a draft workflow." when i add transitioning on workflow

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

Yes, there's an annoying bug in the workflow editor there.  Atlassian have it as something they'd like to fix, but it's way down the list because it is minor, only affectting a handful of admins and has a work-around.

The work-around is that you have to copy the workflow, make your edits (including making sure you have at least one transition out of every step, so you don't get this problem with it again) and then replace the old workflow with the new one.

[Songezo Nkukwana]

thanks Nic, that worked ... 

While we still on WF, pretty new learning for me .. I have assigned multiple statuses (part of workflow) in one Scrum Board Column, with an expectation that the transition between statuses will be enforced. This is after i added my new workflow to my project (Stories, Tasks, and Sub-Tasks). However, when i move the Stories in a Scrum Board, the statuses are not visible within the Column. The dragging of stories also skip one of my column which has a status mapped. Clearly am not doing something correctly 

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

That's another, far more annoying, flaw.  You cannot move issues between status in the same column on a board.  I've yet to hear a good reason why we can't do it, but we are stuck with it.

Take a look at your workflow diagram again, and work out a list of status that cannot be in the same column (i.e. there is a transition between them) - that should help you work out how your columns should be set up.

[Songezo Nkukwana]

Not what i was hoping to hear, nonetheless i'll take your input, thanks ...

Nic, any idea how i can track developer tasks using duration (hours, or even Story Points)? I have User Stories with story point sizes which i dragged from product backlog to my Sprint. Each US has a Sub-Task. I was hoping i can have Devs estimate each Sub-Task using hours (not SP) so that i can confirm if they can fit everything into the 2 weeks sprint (10 days). 

Also burndown chart view shows a straight-line (red) which means nothing is tracked. Clearly i need to do some prep or setting to enable tracking ... 

My apologies for changing queries in the same topic.

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

Do not try to estimate sprints with sub-task estimates, Jira ignores them because Burn-down measures the story level stuff you committed to, not the sub-tasks the product owner has no interest in.  A story is either not done, or it is done (so you can burn down on it).  It doesn't matter if you've got 0%, 1%, or 99% of the estimates on sub-tasks completed, the story is not done, so you can't burn down on it.

This is a really old blog about it, but it's still broadly valid, and helped me understand the thinking behind this approach.  (In case you've not seen the history, the "Greenhopper" it refers to became the Jira Agile plugin, then later, morphed into Jira Software)

Edit - oops, helps if I add the link!  https://www.atlassian.com/blog/archives/agile-qa-greenhopper-time-estimates-with-sub-tasks

[Songezo Nkukwana]

Nic, thank you so much for these insights, really helpful