What are the proper steps to switch schemes and workflows in an active project?

[Claudia Dimick]

Hello! 

I am a very new Jira Admin at my company. Recently I have been learning how to build out the backend of a company managed project -- all schemes, workflows, etc. I built out everything for this project in my sandbox environment first and it all seemed to work. I built out all schemes and workflows in production, assigned the schemes, but not the workflows (yet) to the active project, and all of the issues in the project became unassigned. So I switched it all back to previous settings and that fixed the problem.

So my questions are: 1) Why did this happen? I'm sure there's a simple explanation. And, 2) Could someone give me the steps that I need to take when I do this sort of configuration change to active company-managed projects in the future? Do I need to make sure I change everything all at once including workflows? I want to make sure that when I switch everything again, including workflows, the issues don't become reassigned from users again.

[Seon Shakespeare]

Hi @Claudia Dimick,

Welcome to the Jira admin club! Awesome that you're learning and using a sandbox - that's a great start!

The issue you ran into with issues becoming unassigned when you changed schemes can happen if the new permission scheme or workflow scheme conflicts with existing assignments.

Here are some examples:

• Permission Scheme: Let's say your old permission scheme allowed anyone in the "developers" group to be assigned to issues. But your new scheme only lets project admins be assigned. When you switch schemes, any issues assigned to developers who aren't project admins might become unassigned.

• Workflow Scheme: Imagine your old workflow had a status called "In Progress" where anyone could be assigned. Your new workflow replaces "In Progress" with two new statuses: "Technical Review" (only developers can be assigned) and "Design Review" (only designers can be assigned). If an issue was "In Progress" and assigned to someone who's neither a developer nor a designer, it might become unassigned when the new workflow is applied.

Here's the approach I generally take for changes:

1. Plan and test thoroughly in a sandbox environment.
2. Think about how the schemes I'm changing might affect each other.
3. Minimise disruption by making small, iterative changes or rolling them out gradually.

This free learning path from Atlassian University is a great resource too: https://university.atlassian.com/student/path/1928323-streamline-projects-across-jira-with-shared-configurations

Hope this helps!