Can't add status

[Janath Dilshan]

I want to add a new colum in workflow. At board settings, I can add new columns pressing "Add column" button. But I can't add "Add status". I'm the admin of this project. Please check my screenshot. 

[Semi · Accepted solution]

Hello Janath,

by adding a status you change the workflow of a given project, thats why you need the global permission jira-administrator.

/Br

Semi Kefi

[Janath Dilshan]

Checked global permissions in settings. Seems like administrator has all privileges. 

[Semi]

You are only Project-Administrator and not additionally Jira-Admin or Sys-Admin.

[Janath Dilshan]

Ah got it. Now it's working fine. Thanks a lot. 

[Andriy Tatchyn]

Why do I need to change global permissions when I just created the Jira workspace and I am an only user? Am I not supposed to have all need permissions to change workflow? 

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

No.  Admin means admin, not "do everything", although an admin certainly can allow someone (including themselves) to do anything.

You don't need to mess with global permissions for this one, just make sure you are at least a Jira admin, so you can edit workflows.

[Andriy Tatchyn]

Hello Nic, It is not like, I do this every day, so before making those changes I also have to figure out what is the problem and search for a solution which can take 1-2 hours. Nic, don't you think the User Experience suffer in this case? 

I mean, before making some important changes to the workflow, do I really have to provide permissions for myself?

As a solution may be a good idea will be offering Jire admin permission to users who set up the cloud Jira. What do you think? 

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

No, the user experience does not suffer.  In fact, having too many admins is pretty much at the top of the list of things you never do in Jira, and you should ensure that your admins are either experienced, or cautious, disallowing change until they know how to support it.

The right to change workflow is complex across the various versions.  There's Admin rights for all versions.  Jira 7.6+ allows an admin to delegate a limited edit function, and Jira Software allows an admin to "simplify" a workflow, which also has some limits.

Workflows are complex, and not something a user should edit without understanding - the delegated edits above are all controlled and limit the users to changes they will find it hard to make a mess of.

[Joe Pitt]

I agree with @Nic Brough -Adaptavist-. Too many JIRA Admins can get you into trouble if they don't plan and coordinate.  Unless you have a small instance, changing a workflow will often impact several projects and they may not want the change. Having many custom workflows for only minor variations can lead to confusion in the user experience if they work on multiple projects with the same issue type, but different workflows. 

[Andriy Tatchyn]

Ok, I am doing it again 10 months later and I am confused again. I am a member of all possible admin groups but I still can not add a status. Can you please help me? It would be nice to have step by step instruction because it is not clear at all.  Thank you!!!

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

Are you a project administrator on ALL projects named in the board filter?

[Jim Orr]

@Andriy Tatchyn You are stuck in the exact same place I was for a week when I first was setting up JIRA. What I discovered is even though you may be the one who opened the JIRA account, which I am, and you are the one who created the board, which I am, that does not give you administrator privileges into the project, which it should. 

Trying to go by memory as to what I did but I think what you need to do is from the screenshot you show go to General on the left-hand menu.  Make sure you are listed as administrator. In addition, you may need to go down to the bottom of the page and look for the link that says, "View Permission".  From there look for "People" in the menu on the left-hand side. You might have to be listed there as well. Not sure. Once you do this the Add Status button should become active for you. 

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

>that does not give you administrator privileges into the project, which it should. 

Oh no no no, board rights should absolutely NEVER give you project rights.  That blows a hole straight through all concepts of ownership and security in projects.

Imagine you have a project called X, which I, as a customer of your IT department can see, and raise issues in, but nothing more.  Imagine I have one called Y for my developers.  I create a board with "project in (X, Y)".  I now have admin over your project, including the ability to trash your workflow, hack the users, reprioritise all of the issue I care about in there without your permission and so-on.

Board permissions should NEVER give you any permission over other projects.

[Jim Orr]

@Nic Brough -Adaptavist- I will admit that I am a novice at best when it comes to setting up JIRA and administrating it. However, I think this sting illustrates how people like Andriy, me, and many many others get so frustrated when seeking help here. 

Case in point here, Andriy asked for step by step instruction on how to resolve his issue of not being able to enable the Add Status button. 

Your only response to him was to ask if he is Project Admin on all boards. Well, even I know that obviously, he is not. Would it not have been a much better response to walk him through HOW to check to see if he is a project admin and how to set it up correctly if he is not like he asked.

At least I attempted to do that, my answer was wrong, and thank you for pointing that out. Yet instead of responding with what the correct answer is you go into great detail as to why my answer is wrong.  Yet you stay silent on what the correct answer is. 

I apologize as I don't mean to jump on you personally but this is a constant pattern I see time and time again throughout this entire community board by all the experts. 

Don't even get me started with all the KB articles out there with outdated information and screenshots. 

[Andriy Tatchyn]

I fixed the problem:

1. Go to the Project settings/permissions page (Screen 1)
2. Click edit permissions (Screen 1)
3. Click Grant permissions (Screen 2)
4. Provide Administer Projects permissions to jira-administrator (Screen 3)

The whole process itself is not easy if you do not know what you have to do exactly. And the idea that jira-administrator group, do not have a Project Administer permissions, to me is ridiculous itself. 

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

@Jim Orr

Let me start with the basics:  You're right.  And I apologise to both you and @Andriy Tatchyn

My response to Andriy was terse and short.  I'll try to explain why:

I'd tried to get Andriy pointed in the right direction by saying "look at the project admin rights".  That is, exactly as you say, very short and can be seen as terse.  People answering like this are hoping that it is enough to get the questioner looking in the right place.

The reason we tend to be short and terse is simple volume.  There are thousands of similar questions here, with good answers, plus the documentation, being ignored, and this is born of two main problems (I have no idea what the ratio between these are)

- People are lazy.  Really lazy.  They ask instead of searching, reading or putting any effort it.  Why should we make any effort when they won't?  I'd like to think a short pointer response is at least a bit better than the instinctive human response of RTFM/RTFCommunity/LMGTFY.

- People genuinely can't find it for all sorts of reasons.  We all have a lot more sympathy here, but for those who are a bit stuck, but willing to engage and learn, often all they need is a pointer, not a step by step.  We don't want to carry on making it worse by repeating it ad-infinitum.  And there's a hope that a pointer encourages people to look and learn, more than spoon-feeding would.

>Your only response to him was to ask if he is Project Admin on all boards. Well, even I know that obviously, he is not.

No, there's other reasons, this is just going to be the most common one.  There's an essay question on covering the others, which I really don't want to waste everyone's time with if it is the most common.  So the short response is intended to get someone to look, think and hopefully learn.

>Would it not have been a much better response to walk him through HOW to check to see if he is a project admin and how to set it up correctly if he is not like he asked.

No, I think, for the reasons above.  It's in the docs, it's in the community hundreds of times, it's more noise.  If answerers stepped through every question every time, we'd make the mess we're in thousands of times worse, and have to neglect even more questions than we already do.

>I apologize as I don't mean to jump on you personally but this is a constant pattern I see time and time again throughout this entire community board by all the experts.

Don't.  I really don't think you have any reason to apologise at all.  You're railing against a common pattern that is a poor human response to "we've seen this a million times" compounded by my thoughtlessness.   You're absolutely right to do so.

I hope my essay has helped explain why I responded like I did - both the terse response to Andriy and the "eep, security no-no" to yours.  I should have followed up on the security one to point out it was a diversion, and to ask if Andriy has had any luck finding it!

TLDR: We need a better system on community, one that catches the simple questions like this and points people to the previously correct and common answers instead of getting people terse replies.  The community advisory board discusses this every time we meet!

[Jim Orr]

Thank you for your thoughtful response. I really don't want to go back and forth over each point but let me just comment on your last statement and leave it there. There are ways and techniques that can be done to at the very least greatly alleviate this problem. You say the community advisory board discusses it everytime they meet but obviously no one has taken ownership of it or felt it a high enough priority because from what I can tell the problem is not getting any better and how you run this board never changes. 

Here is my perspective from a 30+ year Tech Support Manager and Software QA Engineer on the product itself that in some ways is feeding the problem you have managing this community board. 

You guys do a great job of making JIRA very easy for the end user to use it, but in the back end it is a nightmare to administer.  The powers to be there at Atlassian need to understand that there are many small companies like the one I work for that need the organization and process JIRA deliveries but we can't dedicate someone full time for God knows how long to learn all the ins and outs of setting it up. We simply don't have the time, patience, and resources to do that. This all I am sure you have nothing to do with but just one person from the masses here sounding off. 

Thank you for your time. 

[Andriy Tatchyn]

I fixed the problem:

1. Go to the Project settings/permissions page (Screen 1)
2. Click edit permissions (Screen 1)
3. Click Grant permissions (Screen 2)
4. Provide Administer Projects permissions to jira-administrator (Screen 3)

The whole process itself is not easy if you do not know what you have to do exactly. And the idea that jira-administrator group, do not have a Project Administer permissions, to me is ridiculous itself. 

[Joris Vleminckx]

I did this on a brand new Jira installation and a final step missing for me was adding myself as an Administrator in the project's settings->People. 

[Jim Orr]

how to add statuses any body share how in global persmissions

[zhanwenchen]

First of all, you need to go to https://your.atlassian.net/secure/admin/workflows/ListWorkflows.jspa  and edit the workflows of all your projects (create an "On Hold" status for all of them). Then, on the board containing the scrum/kanban board, do "board settings" > "columns," add a new column called "On Hold" and drag the "on hold" tiny card from the "unmapped columns" section and drop it on "On Hold.' Voila!

[Jason McGovern]

Thanks Andriy for helping me resolve my issues in adding a simply column/status to the workflow. I didn't know I was going to have to search forums and jump through hoops just to add a simple "Ready To Review" column.