Use status Done, Closed or both?

[Marte Kristoffersen]

I see a lot of questions about Closed vs Resolved, but I am wondering about the Done vs Closed.

I now have a workflow like this: Backlog -> To do -> ... -> Done -> Closed.

On the Done there is no Resolve Screen, but Closed has with resolution, description etc.

I was asked why I would use both Done and Closed, and I can't say I have found a good answer or explanation about this.

Why not just use Done or just use Closed? Is there any use cases where both is necessary?

If anyone can share any good practices and thoughts around Done and Closed I would very much appreciate it!

[Mohamed Benziane · Accepted solution]

Hi @Marte Kristoffersen 

I would say it depend of your needs. You can use done for developer, when they finish a task they push the ticket in the done status and then you have the QA or client that will check that the solution suit their need and close the ticket.

But you can also use only one status, juste change your workflow and transition screen.

[Jana Pelz]

Hi Folks,

all agreed. We use more or less the same procedure within our workflows. Status "Done" without resolution used from the team to show that they are done with implementation and internal testing. "CLOSED" with a resolution for customers acceptance. 

BUT! - there is an issue in case you are using Advanced Roadmaps for your project planning (https://confluence.atlassian.com/jirasoftwareserver/troubleshoot-missing-issues-in-advanced-roadmaps-1044784180.html). Issues with (green) Status "DONE" not having a resolution do not appear in the plan. And the only workaround is to change the whole workflow logic that worked perfectly for years. 

This is very annoying for us and I thought you might find this information useful. 

[Ismail Sanni]

Hi @Marte Kristoffersen 

From my perspective, they are different, DONE is when the assigned issue is done, but it might not be closed until the QA (Quality Assurance) team confirm the issue is done correctly, I think CLOSED just means the issue is completed and verified. I think it depends on the way you want it to be. Jira is flexible.

[Pramodh M]

Hi @Marte Kristoffersen 

Here is my thought!!

Most Organizations would go with the Closed Status to mark the issue as really closed one

In your workflow, 

To Do --> In Progress --> Done --> Closed

Have the Resolution set when the issue is moved to Done Status. It's not quite necessary that the task may be completed when the issue is moved to Done because the Bug may arise or any pending work may be there,

so here you could wither include reopen transition to In Progress, or create a new issue linking to Done issue.

Let's say your issue which is moved to Done status is stale for atleast 10 days, then its better we move the issue Closed status which really means the task is done related to the issue.

Thanks

[Jim Taylor]

In an Agile development team we talk in terms of 'getting done' and 'definition of done' not in terms of 'closed'.

In an Agile development team the issue (pbi) is owned by the whole team, there are no internal stage gates like BA/Dec/QA so once the work is done...... It's done. Done has always been the final stage and there's a clue in the word 'DONE'.

I've seen some teams hang on to Done issues and delay closing the workflow until it's integrated or released. Again this is adding dependencies out of the teams control. Waiting for environments to be ready and other teams to test. This just supports the dependency problem.

So you get to a large organisation, there's lots of teams, lots of different use cases and abilities and invariably you get the Scrum Masters wanting to get done and the Project Managers relishing every halting step of the waterfall workflow to close the ticket.

It really undermines 'best practice'  and 22 years of proven process.