Change Workflow Transition IDs

[Robert_Ronec]

I have some workflows I am trying to clean up and one item is to update the existing transition IDs so that they are in some logical sequence (e.g. 10, 20, 30 etc..) so in the future, new workflow items can be added without issue.

Is there a way to update the existing workflow transition IDs without having to rebuild entire workflow?

Thanks in advance!

Robert

[Daniel Schmidt]

Hi there,

I also have the requirement to change the transition IDs, but for a different reason. Apparently, the transition IDs are used to display the next available workflow steps in a ticket and to determine their order. Unfortunately, the sorting does not correspond to human logic, as completed statuses appear in the middle of the list, which one would rather expect at the end of the list. Someone else might wish for alphabetical sorting.

kr

Daniel

[Daniel Schmidt]

here you can find the solution for changing the order

https://community.atlassian.com/t5/Jira-Software-questions/How-can-i-change-the-order-of-status-transitions-in-ticket/qaq-p/2604190

[Petter Gonçalves]

Hello Robert,

Welcome to Atlassian Community.

Could you please let us know if you are using JIRA Server or Cloud?

Also, could you please give us more details on why you are needing to change the transition IDs of your workflows? I think there are no reasons that would make this change worthwhile since the steps are really laborious - Especially if you are on JIRA Cloud.

That been said, If you are using JIRA server, you can use the export/import workflow feature (Using XML) to properly export the workflow, Edit the XML file and import it back to JIRA. These would be the steps:

1. Select the Jira icon (, , ,  or ) > Jira settings > Issues.
2. Click Workflows.
3. Find the relevant workflow and click View.
4. Click Export > As XML
5. Complete the Export client
6. Change the Transition IDs in your workflow file
7. Follow the instructions on this documentation to import the file back to your JIRA

If you are using JIRA Cloud, the same steps could be performed to edit the transition IDs, however, you would need to create a marketplace account to upload your workflow and them add it to your JIRA since you cannot import XML files directly to JIRA Cloud. There is more information about the import steps of workflows on JIRA Cloud in the documentation below:

- Importing and exporting issue workflows

Let me know if this information helps. Hope you have a nice Tuesday!

[Robert_Ronec]

Thanks for the quick reply Petterson :-) 

We are using JIRA cloud. We are changing or hoping to change the workflow transiton IDs for the following reason:

1> An issue and project workflow where developed out sometime back. Using the JIRA API's, we absorb the workflow transitions into one of our platforms for the users to transition thru the workflow, as they do not access JIRA itself. In two of our workflows, one for projects and other for issues, based on the transition ID, we send out an email notification to our clients of the change in workflow state, but some of the transition IDs in both workflows are the same and are causing some issues with incorrect email notifications.

2>We are looking to cleanup the existing two workflows with some added transition states and thought it would be good to have the IDs in a logical sequence so we can modify down the road without running into issues from our front end.

Hope that's not too long winded and provides some clarity.

Will try ur approach and keep u updated the same on the result.

Thanks,

Robert

[Petter Gonçalves]

Thank you for the clarification, Robert.

We will be waiting to know if our steps have worked for you. :)

[brittani benally]

Hello there,

I'm curious if the process of updating transition IDs for Jira Cloud are the same as noted above or if this has been simplified? At my organization, we have absorbed the workflow transitions into one of our platforms using the Jira API based on transition IDs without realizing there were 2 projects were not in sync with the other projects. I'm trying to find a quick way of resolving this. 

Thank you,

Brittani

[Andrew Daniels]

As a general rule/fact to point out, Transition ids aren't actually stable values, and are regenerated whenever a workflow is saved. 

While you may find a way to update your transition IDs, you'll need to be mindful of them potentially changing whenever a workflow gets updated.

[Dominic Cousins]

Hi all,

I've never seen transition IDs change from simply updating the workflow, you would need to re-create the workflow for them to change. This can be a bit of a problem when promoting workflows to new environments because we would like the transition IDs to be consistent across the environments and manually creating the workflows such that they have the same IDs is quite difficult.

If Atlassian do not endorse using transition IDs, is there any plan to update the transition issue endpoint to be able to use some other identifier for a transition, such as it's name?

It is a bit of a problem for us that the REST API can only transition using the ID, yet we have no control over what the IDs are.

[Nelleke]

Hello @Andrew Daniels , as transition IDs are not stable, what is your recommendation when we use an outside script to transition an issue based on a change in a different system.

We have noticed that the IDs change, and we would like to have the code be able to deal with that. All we can think of right now is search through all available transitions, search by name, to get the right one which is not very efficient.

We are considering caching this, but would appreciate any input.