Permission to add/remove/change Issue Statuses

[Taylor Hetherington]

My organization won't give me "Atlassian Admin" permission because they don't want me to be able to see "everything" across the organization. All I want is permission to add/remove/change the Statuses of Issues. Is there a permission that includes permission to add/remove/change Issue Statuses without giving me access to everything? Neither I nor our Jira Admin at our company can figure it out.

[Jack Brickey · Accepted solution]

Do you know if you are using CMP or TMP project? This will be designated in the bottom left-hand corner. If you are a project admin in a CMP you can update the workflow and associated statuses. If you are an administrator of a TMP then you can also update the statuses. Also in a TMP project the current users that have admin access to that project can also give you admin access. In other words you don’t need someone at a site admin level to give you admin permissions on a TNP project. So ultimately you don’t need to be a site administrator to change statuses. Now with that said it still may not be advisable to give just anybody the ability to do this as it does have implications to others using that project. There really isn’t a reason to have permission to do this because it’s not something that should change frequently. I will try to work with your current admin’s and give them your needs and have them make those changes on your behalf.

I hope all this makes sense.

[Trudy Claspill]

Caveat: With Company Managed Projects (CMP) as a project admin you may not be able to change the workflow. It depends in part on whether your project is sharing the workflow with another project.

[Jack Brickey]

True but you could copy the workflow and move away from shared WF.

[Taylor Hetherington]

@Jack Brickey I am using a CMP.

[Jack Brickey]

Ok, I suggest you discuss this matter further with your site admin’s and see if you can get permission to update this one project as a project admin. Or it may just be easier to have them make the change for you. Especially if you have no experience updating workflows.

[Taylor Hetherington]

Do you happen to have, or know of, an instructive resource that I can give my site admin to follow in order to give me this permission? He and I were on a call together yesterday and we couldn't figure it out, despite googling and searching Atlassian question/answer threads.

[Jack Brickey]

Project admin permissions: project settings > people , Find your name and in the drop-down add administrators to your permissions. This will give you project administration permissions not site administration Permissions. Permissions 

Editing the workflow things to know…

• statuses for CMP are global so if you were to change a current status it will change it for all projects that use that status
• if you have a shared workflow as mentioned above as a project admin you’ll be unable to edit that workflow and rightfully so. In that case you will need to make a copy of the workflow and associate this copy to your project. Once that is done you can edit the workflow. However you may run into an issue where you require a site admin to assist here. It depends on exactly what you’re attempting to do. In some cases you need to edit the workflow in the inactive section under the site administration section which, as a project admin, you won’t have access to.

reference these articles for mor info:

how-do-jira-permissions-work 

what-are-jira-workflows 

final $0.02 - based on what you’re attempting to do I strongly encourage you to not attept this yourself. This really should be left to your Jira administrator. If it is intended for you to take on more responsibility as an administrator then that would make sense. However if you simply want to change some statuses or add some statuses this is something you’re Jira administrator can easily do. My experience has been that the more people involved in making these changes then inevitably your instance is going to end up being difficult to maintain over time.

[Taylor Hetherington]

My admin sent me the screenshot showing I have Admin permissions but when I click on the cog in the top right-hand corner the message in the light yellow box still tells me I don't have permission.

What am I missing?

[Jack Brickey]

what you’re missing is training/experience. 😉

The cog is reserved for site admin/Jira admin users not project admins. as a project admin you can access “project settings” in a given project. The link I provided to workflows above should guide you and how to access an edit given workflow.

[Taylor Hetherington]

I think I'm not able to change statuses, even with my current admin permissions, because our board is not using a "Simplified Workflow" but a "Jira Workflow". Looks like we'll need to use a Simplified Workflow if I want to be able to edit Statuses (right?)

source: https://support.atlassian.com/jira-software-cloud/docs/use-the-simplified-workflow/

[Jack Brickey]

I don’t think so but may be mistaken. For sure you cannot edit a shared workflow that is used across other projects. To edit a shared workflow you must be at your admin for good reason. Here’s something you can try as a project admin. Have your Jira admin create a copy of the current workflow and give it a name that you desire. Then see if you’re able to associate this new workflow to your project. If necessary have your Jira admin do that step as well. Once complete see if you were able to edit that workflow. Again I refer you to the workflow documentation to learn more about these steps