Dragging a user story in To Do to In Progress not working

[kamal_a_nayan]

Hi,

I have 'In Progress' column with 2 possible status - 'In Progress' and Blocked. When I drag a user story from 'To Do' column to 'In Progress' column, it pops up the screen to fill up the Blocking details as if the user story is being blocked.. What I need to do so that dragging simply puts the user story in 'In Progress' state.

[Stephen_Lugton]

Hi @kamal_a_nayan 

Start off as @Mohamed Benziane suggested by checking whether there is a transition screen set up for the transition for 'To Do' to 'In Progress'

Then check the order of the possible statuses in the column.

This is because when you set up multiple statuses in the same column, especially when the workflow can go from one status to any of the statuses in the column, you have to take into account the order of the statuses in the column set up screen.  Typically if you just drag into a column the status will change to the top possible status in the list (although in Jira cloud at least there are different drag and drop areas highlighted in each column for each possible status).

You could also adjust the workflow so that you can only go from 'To Do' to 'In Progress' and to change to 'Blocked' you have to go to 'In Progress' first.

You could add a 'blocked' column and keep the 2 statuses separate.

[kamal_a_nayan]

Thanks Stephen.

As written to Trudy, 'In Progress' is the first status defined in 'In Progress' Column and I get only one area when I am dragging in. 

Your suggestion to have a separate column for Blocked is great but it would mean that 'In Progress' will also need to go through Blocked state before being put as Done. Is it not because the order from Left to Right would be 'To Do' -> 'In Progress' -> Blocked -> Done OR am I missing something?

[Trudy Claspill]

Hello @kamal_a_nayan 

Welcome to the Atlassian community.

What is the Type of the project the issue is in? Get the project Type information from the View All Projects page under the Projects menu.

In addition to @Mohamed Benziane 's suggestion...

Can you show us the Columns page for the board, showing the Statuses that are mapped to each column?

It is possible that there are two statuses (In Progress and Blocked) mapped to the one column, and you may be dragging the issue to the Blocked status rather than the In Progress status.

[kamal_a_nayan]

Trudy, 

Thanks for the response.

It is a software project.
True, I have 2 states defined for 'In Progress' column -  'In Progress' and 'Blocked' . 'In Progress' sits above Blocked.

When I am dragging from 'To Do', I get only one box where I can drag into which seems to be for the Blocked state. I am not getting 'In Progress' box where I can drag into.

[Trudy Claspill]

That indicates that there is no transition available to you from the current status of the issue to the "In Progress" status. This can happen for a variety of reasons such as:

1. No such transition exists

2. There is a Condition associated to the transition that limits who can execute it.

3. There is a Condition associated to the transition that requires some field(s) to have some value(s), and the issue doesn't meet those conditions.

When you looked up the project type, besides "software" did it say "team-managed" or "company-managed"?

That portion of the project Type will determine who can examine the workflow to see with of the 3 options (or some other option) is preventing you from seeing the transition.

[kamal_a_nayan]

Trudy,

It just says Software.

The workflow defined is

[Trudy Claspill]

Thank you for that additional information.

Can you provide a screen image of where you are seeing the project Type information? If it says only "software" then you are not using Jira Cloud, but are instead using Jira Data Center. And in that case you will have to speak to a Jira Application Administrator to get help examining the workflow.

Looking at the above diagram we need to first ascertain if a transition exists at all. You said the issue is in the To Do column, but there is no To Do status in the diagram. What is the actual current status of the issue you are trying to move?

I can see that there is a transition from Open to In Progress, and from Reopened to In Progress. I see a transition coming into the bottom of the In Progress status, but I can tell where that comes from.

To see the details of the transitions to see if there is a Condition in them will require Jira Application Admin or Jira System Admin access.

[kamal_a_nayan]

Trudy, 

My bad. It is not Jira Cloud but Jira server set up although company managed server is in the cloud. Also, I may have caused the confusion by giving the workflow. Attached is the drop down to change status of an Open item where Open is one of the status in the 'To Do' column. Also, attached is the project details snap shot.

[Trudy Claspill]

Thank you for that additional information.

Is the list of the available transition shown in you last response taken from the same issue you are trying to move on the board?

Can you provide a screen image of the Columns page from the board configuration showing the mapping of the In Progress status to a column?

[kamal_a_nayan]

Hi Trudy,

yes, the available transitions apply to the issue I was trying to move.

Attached is the snapshot of Columns page

[Trudy Claspill]

Hello Kamal,

I don't see an attachment for the Columns page screen image.

[kamal_a_nayan]

Sorry Trudy, it seems that the attachment did not go through. Here it is

[Trudy Claspill]

Thank you for providing that screen image.

So far I can't see a reason for you to not be able to drag the card to the In Progress status in the In Progress column.

If you change the status to In Progress from the issue details view, does the card display in the In Progress column on the board?

[Stephen_Lugton]

@kamal_a_nayan From the information provided, a possible reason I can see is that the ticket you're trying to move is has a status of 'Backlog' which doesn't actually have an available transition to 'In Progress'

[kamal_a_nayan]

Trudy, yes, the card gets displayed in the In Progress column if I change the status to In Progress from the issue details view. In fact, this is what I did to get to the right bucket.

Stephen, sorry, not following you. Where do you see that Backlog doesn't have an available transition to 'In Progress'. 'To Do' column lists Backlog status. 

[Stephen_Lugton]

@kamal_a_nayan the possible statuses that you can transition TO depend on the workflow rather than which statuses are assigned to each column.

In general you can only transition to a new status if the workflow has a connector (arrow) from the existing status to the new one OR when the destination status has a connector that says ALL next to it.

In your workflow there is no connector from 'Backlog' to 'In Progress' so if your issue status is 'Backlog' you won't be able to drag and drop it to 'In Progress' even though 'In Progress' is mapped to the In Progress column.

However since 'Blocked' has the ALL entry next to it, you will be able to drag and drop a 'backlog' status issue from the To Do column to the In Progress column (which has 'blocked' mapped to it) but it will only be able to transition to the 'blocked' status.

[kamal_a_nayan]

Hi Stephan,

You nailed it. Thanks so much.

Once the status is changed from Backlog to Open, I get 2 boxes where I can drag into - Blocked and 'In Progress'.

Thanks again.

[Trudy Claspill]

@kamal_a_nayan 

I'm glad @Stephen_Lugton was able to help you find the solution.

For clarity, I had asked if this image you provided

...was for the same issue that you were unable to drag from the To Do column to the In Progress column, and you said it was. Based on those statements I believed that the issue you were trying to drag between columns was in the Open status when you tried to drag it, and in that case it should've been able to be moved.

Is the list of the available transition shown in you last response taken from the same issue you are trying to move on the board?

yes, the available transitions apply to the issue I was trying to move.

As we have learned from your dialog with Stephen, you were actually trying to move an issue that was in the Backlog status, and so the above image could not have been from the same issue you were trying to move.

[kamal_a_nayan]

Hi Trudy, 

My sincere apology for the confusion.

To clarify, it was for the same Jira however it seems that when dragging did not work, I changed the status to Open and then to In Progress using drop down but never attempted to drag after changing the status to Open.

When Stephen responded, I attempted dragging the other items, some of which were sitting in Backlog status while some were Open. It is then when I realized that I was able to drag the ones in Open status and not the ones in Backlog status.

Sorry again and thanks a lot for your help. Very much appreciate it.

[Mohamed Benziane]

Hi,

it seems that you have a transition screen, if you want to get rid of it you must delete this transition screen from the workflow.

[kamal_a_nayan]

Mohamed,

Thanks. I have not defined any Transition Screen. There is nothing which appears under Issues Menu. Where can I see if there is any Transition Screen?