How to create workflows for company-managed projects
This page is for company-managed projects
To check whether your project is team-managed or company-managed, select more actions (•••) next to the project name in either the header or the sidebar. At the bottom of the menu that opens, you’ll be able to view whether your project is team-managed or company-managed.
More about the difference between company-managed and team-managed projects.
The way tasks and processes are managed in Jira Work Management is through workflows. A workflow maps out the steps and statuses that a task can go through and defines your process.
If your team does work that's more complicated than "to do, in progress, done", then you'll need to customize the way your typical processes are set up. You can edit the overall workflow used in a project, or modify the way particular task types are handled in the workflow.
You need to be a Jira administrator to create and edit workflows.
Key workflow components
Business project workflows are made up of several key components:
Status: current state
Transitions: change events
Transitions are the actions that move a task between statuses. For example, 'Sent to review'.
Resolution: final state
When a task is finalised, and no longer open, it needs a resolution status.
The resolution closes the work item and represents the final state of the piece of work. For example, "done", "published", or "rejected".
Workflow steps are mapped to board columns
If you use boards, you'll notice there's a correlation between your workflows order and your board. Each step of a workflow is associated with a column on the board.
They may correlate one to one, or there may be multiple workflow steps associated with one column. For example, a work item with the workflow steps "draft", "review", "approve" might all appear in the "In progress" column.
Keep workflows simple
Business project workflows are designed to make your work processes easier, so make sure you keep them as simple as you can. Here's an example of a simple editorial process:
StartStory ideas Draft Review Final draft Final review Published
In the example above, a piece of work can only move forward in the process. However, we can simplify it a lot further by creating a review loop, instead of separate review statuses.
The loop allows us to move our work back and forth in a draft and review cycle.
To help you simplify processes, map them out in full (like the top example), then look at where you can consolidate steps. Remember that each step represents the current state of a piece of work, so if it can be in one state multiple times, consider having only one status to reflect this.
Don't create a custom workflow for every variation of task that you do. Try to re-use workflows for as many processes as you can.
Update a project's workflow
If your project has a workflow that's pretty close to what you need, you can update it by adding statuses and transitions to suit your needs.
To update the existing project workflow:
Select a business project that you wish to update the workflow for.
Next to your project's name in the sidebar, select More actions (•••), then Project settings.
Select Workflows from the sidebar.
Select Edit workflow.
You can do any of these actions:
Select Add status to add a new step to the workflow (you can add existing statuses or create new ones)
Select Add transition or drag from a node on one status to another to add a transition
Select Publish Draft.
To change to a different initial status (the first one after the circle), click the transition line then drag the arrow from the existing initial status to your new one.
When you publish your new workflow, Jira will ask you if you'd like to save a copy of the original. If you're not sure about your changes, or you just like to be cautious, save a copy of the original workflow so you can re-apply it to your project should you need to.
Here's a shot of the workflow editor in "diagram" mode. It lets you add statuses and draw transitions between them. Here we've added an approval stage and a Rejected resolution for those work items that aren't approved.
Notice the nodes on the "Approved" status in the example below. They appear when you hover over a status in the workflow designer. Click and drag from the nodes on one status to the nodes on another status to quickly add a transition.
In this example, you need to approve a work item (it'll then transition it to the Approved status) before you can complete it (transition it to Done). From Done, if the work item needs more work, you can either reopen it (transition it to Approved again) or send it to be reassessed for approval (transition it to the To Do status).
For more on creating and editing workflows, see Working with workflows.
Consult all stakeholders
If your process involves multiple people, teams or groups, then you need to develop a workflow that meets everyone's needs. Get stakeholders in a room to talk about requirements and minimum must-haves. Here are some things to think about:
What are the basic steps in the process? What steps are done by each group, team or person? Are any steps repeated or looped, such as review steps or approval gates?
What information is required to complete the process? For example, is there a request form? Are there designs or assets involved? What is the final output?
What restrictions does there need to be to ensure that the process is followed? For example, can some steps only be done by some people? Who are the approvers?
Low-tech tip: use a whiteboard to create a flow diagram that everyone can see and agree on.
Create a new workflow
If there isn't an existing workflow to meet your needs, you can create a new one then use it with your project.
Go to Settings (), then Work items
Choose Workflows and select Add workflow.
Do both of the following until you've built your workflow:
Select Add status to add a new step to the workflow (you can add existing statuses or create new ones)
Select Add transition or drag from a node on one status to another to add a transition
Select Publish Draft.
Select the new workflow to use with your project:
Select a business project that you wish to update the workflow for.
Next to your project's name in the sidebar, select More actions (•••), then Project settings.
Select Workflows from the sidebar.
Select Edit workflow.
Select your new workflow, then Next.
Choose the work types that will use this workflow and select Finish.
Select Publish and Associate to migrate any existing work items to the new statuses in your workflow.
To change to a different initial status (the first one after the circle), click the transition line then drag the arrow from the existing initial status to your new one.
Manage task actions through transitions
You can take control over how your work items behave as they are progressing through the workflow by customizing transitions. For example, you can make sure work items are always assigned to a certain person when they are in a certain status.
Note that this is an advanced task.
Control status changes using conditions
Use conditions to determine who can change work items from one specific status to another. For example, make it so that only a particular assignee (like a reviewer) can change the status of a work item to "Ready to publish".
Set up validation tasks
Use validators to ensure that a status change gets validated before it happens. For example, before changing to a Review status, a validator can check if a draft is ready.
Create automatic actions
Use post-functions to trigger specific changes on work items after they've passed conditions and validators. For example, you can set a post-function to make sure a resolution reason is always given when the resolution is set.
Control assignees for specific statuses
You can make it so that whenever a status of a work item is changed, it forces the user to choose a new assignee. This ensures that the next part of the work gets done by the right person. See advanced workflow configuration for more.
Manage transition properties
Business projects recognize some properties on transitions. The most common one is to limit resolutions displayed to the user on a given transition. For example, we might want the resolution scratched to show up for disk media when retiring, but not for books.
For more information about these tasks, see Advanced workflow configuration.
Get the most out of your workflows
Before you edit a workflow make sure it isn't being used by any other projects! Any changes made to a shared workflow will impact all the projects using it.
To re-use a workflow in another project, select "Create with shared configuration" when you create the new project or update the default workflow in the new project to the one that you want.
Remember to hit Publish to make new or edited workflows active in your project.
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