Publishing a workflow copy

[Rebecca Podmore]

I have taken a copy of an active workflow for stories and changed it and saved it, but I cannot see any way in the latest version to publish. It used to be offered when saving the copy, a simple "publish" button was right there next to it automatically and clicking it replace of the original. Now there is nothing and the copy is filed off in the new "inactive" part of that page. I urgently need to publish this, please help!

This question is for the cloud version.

[Jobin Kuruvilla [Adaptavist]]

Publishing is not when you work on a copy of the workflow. it is when you work on a "Draft" of the workflow.

For an active workflow, you can make a draft, edit it and publish it. It won't work in some cases but mostly it will.

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

By "won't work", Jobin means that there are some edits you can't do to a draft, not that you can't "publish" them.

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

The migration will be asking you to do this, as it has no idea what to move the issues on the deleted steps to. You can ignore it when it's saying "0 issues affected", but the rest need to be mapped.

[Rebecca Podmore]

I guess the question I am asking is, do I need to check all the steps in the new workflow and associate "open" "resolved" etc with all the steps or transitions? I need specifics sorry.

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

>Had to cancel the migration as too worried

Good move, if you're unsure!

The point of the migration is that if you remove steps that Issues are currently on, it MUST swap them for something else in the new workflow. Otherwise you end up with hanging issues that you can't do anything with (i.e. a broken Jira project)

The migration screen is unnecessarily complex in my opinion - it lists everything that you *might* have to change, including stuff that you don't actually need to think about.

It is good enough to not ask you about the easy ones - if an issue is (say) "Open" and the same status is associated with a step in the new workflow, it won't bother to ask, as nothing needs to change. What it's asking you about are the ones it cannot do as a no-brainer, and unfortunately, it's asking for guidance on everything.

Start the process again, and have a look at the list - it should also be telling you "x of y issues affected". In most of the Jira systems I've looked after, x has been zero because the issue type isn't in the project, or we've already moved things into the right state. You can ignore all the zeros...

[Rebecca Podmore]

So I got to the point of migration and its telling me that all objects, open or not its going to change to "in Planning"....

However when I look at the workflow for this or any other project for that matter, nowhere in the workflows are the settings for "open" "resolved" etc show in the workflow steps or any of the transitions. Why is it going to change this when I cannot see it anyway and absolutely do not want to have to specify key obvious variables like "open".

Had to cancel the migration as too worried as to what it will do and there is nobody here to do a backup.

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

I don't quite understand that - when I create a new scheme, the drop-downs list all the current available workflows, irrespective of their active/inactive state.

However, drafts are NOT included on that list - could that be why you're not seeing it? You're working on a draft instead of a copy?

[Rebecca Podmore]

OK thanks.

But when creating a new workflow scheme it is only offering me existing active workflows to associate with issue types, not the new workflow, which is currently inactive, probably why it isn't getting offered... I haven't been asked to link it to a project yet, guessing that comes later, but how do I get the new workflow to be offered in the list for associations?

[Rebecca Podmore]

Ok but I can't use the draft option as I need to delete 5 steps we no longer want to use, but I am told they are read only because they cannot be deleted. Great! No issues are in this status though so it seems a little restrictive, i.e why can't it check and see if nothing needs to change status by removing some steps and maybe allow you?

I feel like I have a draft I cannot modify, or a copy I can't replace with, still lost!

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

Deleting steps is something you can't do in draft. It's too hard to do the data integrity.

Copy the workflow, delete the steps from the copy, create a new workflow scheme, put the new workflow in it, and change the scheme at the project level.

It will take you through the migration.

As a short term fix though, you could, in draft mode, remove all the transtitions that go INTO your dead steps. It'll still look ugly in the workflow diagram, but the day-to-day usage will have effectively dropped them.

[Jobin Kuruvilla [Adaptavist]]

In this case, you will have to copy the workflow scheme as well, apply the new workflow copy into it and then migrate your project to the new workflow scheme.