Workflow Category

[Andrew Thorne]

Can anybody tell me what the workflow category does, apart from change the colour of the box? Does the workflow cetegory determin any permissions for the status? If so where can I find them?

[kbondcyangate]

The Status categories are the status groups for you statuses... ha... 

the default are ToDo, In Progress, and Done.

In the columns view of a sprint, they align wtih those status categories.  However, if a ticket is changed to "done" or a green status, it will disappear from the colum view.

I want to know how to add a new category status?  I know you can do this in the column configuration, but how to i get those new colums with the new category to show up in my workflow, so i can change statuses to align with that status category? 

For example, If i have a status that says, "ready for deployment", i dont want it in in progress, bc technically it is complete, and if i put it under "done" it will disappear from the column view, thus assuming the task has been completed and there is nothing else to do with it. 

Does anyone have any insight? 

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

The three categories are pretty much hard-coded, so you'd need to go digging into the core of JIRA to add one.

I'd check your board filters carefully, as you say your issues "disappear from the column view", it suggests your filters are hiding them from the board.

[kbondcyangate]

I wonder if it's the "resolved" state... let me check that out.  Thank you for the tip.

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

It's quite common to do that.  It does make sense, and it does work, but it usually needs a bit of explaining to users as some will ask why their cards vanish.

The trick is to have a board filter that says something like "and resolution is empty".  This means you still have a "done" column to drop your cards into when they're done, but the act of doing that sets a resolution and hence the card becomes de-selected by the board.  It is neat and keeps your done column clean without losing it, so people still have somewhere to drop the done cards.

However, if it's confusing, it might be worth a tweak - instead of "and resolution is empty", try something like "and ( resolution is empty or updated > -7d)".  This would mean cards that are resolved/done remain on the board, but after they have not been updated for a week, then they get de-selected and disappear.

[Julia Wester]

Personally, I would change all queue states to "To Do" -- essentially if you want to divide working/waiting/done, to do is a waiting state, just like the other queues. Ideally you'd have a set of statuses in which To Do is teh category that reflects wait that happens before the work is ever "begun" and a new category ("queue" or similar) is added to reflect wait that happens after the work "began". This allows us to measure efficiency of work in process: how much time an in progress item spends actively being worked versus queueing.

[Lara Bailey]

I completely agree. I don't understand why there's only three categories and not four, for this reason. 

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

Because the suggested queue category is the same as to do or in progress depending on your process. It is too vague to be useful and not needed.

[Rob]

Well it would be helpful to have a "rework" category, which, from a workflow perspective, is distinct from "in progress" or even "to do".  Work that was once considered done but now is considered unfinished is a category that reveals a reversal of the implicit workflow direction.

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

Not so much - "rework" really does fall into "to do" - you're describing the issue now needs work, and "to do" is the start of the cycle of the new work, before anyone has started progress on it.

[Vishnukumar Vasudevan]

To my knowledge, its just to group your records based on the colour code (Categories). I think permissions are not connected to this. 

[Andrew Thorne]

Hi, Vishnu, that is my understanding too. Somebody here said they thought that some permissions (booking time, in this case) were dependant on the workflow status category. I am far from being a JIRA expert so I thought I would ask the question. 

Thanks for taking the time to answer.

[Vishnukumar Vasudevan]

I haven't seen it connected any where till now. Thought it's just a color flag which will tell you whether the task is " To be Done" or " In Progress" or " Completed". 

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

There are no permissions connection to the status category. (You could write an add-on to provide them though.  I'm not aware of any that do it in the marketplace)

It can be set up to look like it - we often put "do not edit" flags on status that are in a green category so that people can't update closed issues.   That looks like "green = no edit", but it isn't, it's just that we've applied it to the green status.

[Vishnukumar Vasudevan]

Thanks for clarifying it Nic. 

[Julia Wester]

I would change all queue states to "To Do" -- essentially if you want to divide working/waiting/done, to do is a waiting state, just like the other queues. Ideally you'd have a set of statuses in which To Do is before its ever "begun" and a new waiting category ("queue" or similar) to differentiate "In Progress" states to show how much time an in progress item spends actively being worked versus queueing.

[Robert Barrow]

There are 3 status categories in JIRA - 'To Do' (blue), 'In Progress' (yellow) and 'Done' (green). 

Any new statuses that you create [for use in your workflows] will be mapped to one of these core categories and will take on the same colour. 

The colour coding helps when configuring your workflows and mapping your statuses to the columns on your boards.

It also helps users to identify where issues are in their lifecycle.

[Vivienne Baranowski]

So, if a status is Green for DONE, it does not drive any action for the issue?  In other words, if I wanted to create another mini-process AFTER a story has been accepted (with a category of DONE), I can do that??

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

Yes, you can, it's all about the workflow.  The three categories really are just logical groupings of status that doesn't do much in itself.

[Lara Bailey]

They do - they are used to track total time spent in each category. All Todo categories are summed up together, as are all In Progress and all Done. The issue is there needs to be a 4th category for Waiting, so we can track time a project is waiting as well. Todo should be separate as it's not waiting for anything except resources, which is important to track as well, but distinct from waiting for something outside of the team's control. 

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

So it means "in progress" to you.

The reporting you are talking about is something that should be being done at the status level.

[George Turnbull]

Note in DataCenter the colors are ToDo (Grey) In Progress (Blue) and Done (Green)