Add workflow to my project

[Sam Xia]

I had a hard time to configure workflow in my project. I can create workflow and workflow schema. But I can not associate the workflow schema to my project.

Why is it so hard to configure? I looked at youtude and online help. But under my project, there is no workflow button. 

Please help

[Yogesh Mude · Accepted solution]

HI @Sam Xia

Welcome to the Community!

To associate or to do the modifications in the workflow or workflow scheme you need to have Jira admin rights.

Please confirm this and if so then have a look at the below Kb.

https://confluence.atlassian.com/adminjiraserver072/working-with-workflows-828787890.html

https://confluence.atlassian.com/adminjiracloud/configuring-workflow-schemes-776636598.html

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist- · Accepted solution]

If you can create a workflow from scratch, then you are a Jira admin.  But if the workflow option doesn't appear in the configuration, then your project is an "independent" type project, which don't accept workflows or other config that business, software or service desk projects do.

[Sam Xia]

Hi Nic, thanks for the quick answer. Can I change project type? My project is a software project.

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

Yes, in the project header, you can set it to business/core or Service Desk.

[Sam Xia]

Where is the header? not sure what to do.

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

Go to the project.  Click settings, and the select the first option of project settings.

[Goh Hirose]

This option is not available on the current version of JIRA. Is deleting the project really the only option?

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

I'm going to guess your project is a "team-managed (next-gen)" project.  If so, then that's the current name for what evolved out of "independent" projects, and the answer is the same - there's no workflow (directly).

You'll either need to build your flow the team-managed way or swap to using a company-managed (classic) project.  

You can't convert projects, but you can set up a new one of the other type and bulk-move all the issues to it.

[chris_halcrow]

In my case I wanted to change the workflow for my project, including changing available statuses within the workflow, and then apply it to my project. I did this something like the following. Sorry my explanation isn't completely clear - even though I just spent an entire hour to do it, I'm not exactly sure how to repeat the (convoluted) process:

Jira Settings > Issues > Workflows

Select 'copy' under actions to copy the current (active) workflow for the project

Expand the 'Inactive' section at the bottom of the screen to view the copied (inactive) workflow

Edit the inactive workflow as required (you can't fully edit an active workflow, so you'll need to edit the copy, which is currently inactive)

Switch to Jira project

Project settings > Workflows > Add Workflow

Add the new workflow

Remove the previously active workflow

I then went to Jira settings > workflow schemes and did something to make sure the the new workflow was the only one being used by the workflow scheme that my project uses (I think I just had to publish the workflow scheme). The process was something like assigning the issue types to the new workflow, then doing something to associate the scheme with the project. This prompted me to migrate the status for each removed status to a new status for each assigned issue type. After that, the new workflow was applied to the project. I read the following to get the clues on how to do all of this:

https://support.atlassian.com/jira-cloud-administration/docs/manage-issue-workflows/#Managingyourworkflows-associatingworkflowschemetoprojectAssociatingaworkflowschemewithaproject

Activating a workflow is described here - https://support.atlassian.com/jira-cloud-administration/docs/manage-issue-workflows/#Managingyourworkflows-schemesActivatingaworkflow

[Sam Xia]

Thanks Nic and Yogesh for the help.

I ended up creating a new project and the workflow works. Now I have to migrate all tickets from one project to another. 

[Abdullah Said]

sounds really daunting, im facing the same problem