Guide to JIRA Workflow: Managing Issue Workflow and JIRA Reports

An Exhaustive Manual for Handling Problems in JIRA, Creating a JIRA Workflow, and Creating JIRA Reports:

In our most recent guide from the JIRA Guides Collection, we went over the basics of JIRA Sub-tasks.

In our past JIRA guides, we’ve discussed a variety of issues and how to create them. This guide concentrates on using and comprehending the workflow progression and reporting capabilities of JIRA. Numerous phases, such as ‘In Progress’, are typically associated with JIRA issues.

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During a JIRA issue’s lifecycle, users might modify the description, incorporate remarks, ask for more information on the issue and undertake various other activities.

So, in this tutorial, we’ll delve into the JIRA issue workflow, including the lifecycle of a problem, commenting, sharing via email, and the watching options for JIRA problems.

Working with Issues in JIRA

When an issue is raised in JIRA, its initial state is either ‘To Do’ or ‘Brand New’. This issue stays in the product backlog managed by the Product Owner and Scrum Master in an Agile setting.

The Product Owner decides when and in what sprint the issue should be addressed (e.g., SprintMay2018). They also determine which fix version will address the problem and update the ‘FixVersion’ field of the issue accordingly.

Based on current expertise in the Scrum team, the Product Owner delegates the issue to a specific team. However, it’s not a rigid rule, and any team can receive knowledge transfer if necessary.

During sprint planning (e.g., SprintMay2018), the Scrum team moves the issue to their Sprint Backlog.

Sprint Backlog

The Sprint Backlog is a compilation of issues that the Scrum team commits to address during a sprint planning session.

Once the issue becomes part of the sprint, a team member or the Scrum Master takes responsibility for the issue. The person responsible for the task is then shown in the ‘Assignee’ field of the issue.

If the responsible person believes the time estimated for the issue is inadequate, they may revise the time required after discussing it with the Product Owner and the Scrum Master.

Such discussions are crucial because they allow the Scrum Master to remove one or more issues from the current sprint if it exceeds the team’s capacity.

The responsible person can amend the issue description by using the ‘Edit’ button. In select versions of JIRA, individual fields can be edited by using the pencil (edit) symbol.

The responsible person can then transition the issue to ‘In Progress’ by clicking the ‘Start Progress’ (or ‘In Progress’) button.

If the responsible person believes the problem’s description lacks enough information to proceed with the task, they can halt the task progression by reverting the state back to ‘To Do’.

Certain organizations include a ‘Stop Progress’ button specifically for this purpose. The responsible person needs to provide a clear explanation as to why they’re halting the issue. If available, the issue’s status can be changed to ‘Awaiting Info.’ (this status might not be customized in all organizations).

Making a Comment on a JIRA Issue

To leave a comment, simply click on the ‘Comment’ button located below the problem’s name (‘test bug’ in this case). Alternatively, you can find the ‘Comment’ button under the issue’s ‘Activity’ section.

A text field with formatting options will be shown, as seen in the image below:

After writing a transparent and comprehensible comment, save the comment by clicking the ‘Add’ button. You may apply formatting options, if necessary.

A padlock symbol is placed next to the comment permitting you to restrict the visibility of the comment. Standard options include ‘All Users’, ‘Project Roles’, and ‘Developers’. This restriction aids privacy, especially if the final client has access to JIRA.

The responsible person can also email the issue’s originator using JIRA’s inbuilt email functionality, enabling quicker responses.

Email

Emails can be dispatched using the following choices:

#1) Use the ‘Share this link…’ button located at the top right corner of the page.

#2) Use the ‘Email’ menu item available under the ‘…’ button at the top right corner of the page.

#3) Use the ‘@’ functionality in the comment text field. After typing ‘@’, JIRA will display a list of email IDs, and the user can select one or more recipients.

Note: Options 2 & 3 might only be available after JIRA has been customized.

Clicking the ‘Share’ button will show a popup dialog where you can input the recipient’s username(s) or email ID(s) in the ‘Username or email’ field. You can add additional comments in the ‘Note’ field. Clicking ‘Share’ will send an email to the specified users with a link to the JIRA issue.

The responsible person can opt to ‘watch’ the issue using the ‘Watch issue’ option. By doing so, they will be notified of any changes made to the issue, like changing the description, adding a new comment, or logging work.

Monitor Issue

The ‘Watch Issue’ menu item appears when clicking on the ‘…’ button. Clicking this menu item will add the responsible person to the issue’s watcher list, and the label will change to ‘Stop Watching’, which can be used to cease watching the issue.

Other team or project members can also choose to watch if they want to stay updated on the issue’s status. Watchers will receive notifications of any changes without having to open the issue explicitly.

Once one or more users begin watching the issue, the total will be displayed next to the ‘Watchers’ label (as shown in the photo above). A logged-in user can stop watching the issue by clicking on the ‘Stop watching this issue’ link or ‘Stop Watching’ on the ‘Watchers’ list page.

To see the names of users currently watching a specific issue, click on the ‘Watchers’ menu item, which is displayed after clicking the ‘…’ button, as demonstrated in the images below:

Once satisfied with the information, the assignee can restart the issue. If the status of the issue was ‘To Do’, the assignee can start the progress directly by clicking ‘Start Progress’ (or ‘In Progress’) depending on the button available. The issue can be moved through the workflow as required and can be stopped if necessary.

The assignee must post a detailed and understandable remark on the issue and importantly log work (investment hours) during the day’s end. This allows the Product Owner and various stakeholders to monitor the progress of the issue.

When the assignee considers that the problem is resolved and has been scrutinized and unit tested, they shift the status of the issue to ‘In Test’ (or ‘To Be Verified’).

A dedicated tester from the Scrum team then checks the modifications and the related areas. If any issues or regression bugs are identified during testing, the status of the problem is reverted back to ‘In Progress’ and reassigned to the suitable developer. The tester logs the work by documenting the number of hours spent.

The developer handles the new changes, fixes them, runs unit testing, and shifts the issue back to ‘In Test’. The tester then retests the issue and, if satisfied, marks the issue as ‘Resolved’ (or ‘Done’).

An issue is marked as resolved only after an adequate demonstration to stakeholders at the end of the sprint, where it is confirmed that the Definition of Done (DoD) has been satisfied. Once the fix or the product version is shipped out, the issue can be closed.

It’s worth noting that an issue related to a bug can be closed directly if it turns out to be non-reproducible.

There might be cases where an issue is reopened after some time (days/months) because of an issue caused by the problem. In such scenarios, the issue will need to go through the same workflow once again.

Note: The ‘…’ button mentioned above might be titled ‘More’ and might be positioned along with the ‘Edit’ button in the tool strip on the left side of the page, depending on the customization or version of JIRA.

In a nutshell, a JIRA issue progresses through different stages, including New (or Open) -> In Progress -> In Test -> Resolved (or Done).

Throughout this progression, associated users and stakeholders can append comments and descriptions as needed.

Handling of JIRA Issues

Once you’ve created an issue, you can access it by searching by ID, navigating through the ‘Issues’ menu item, or going directly to project details and checking the issues tab.

When you access an issue and click on its link, you see the issue details. All the actions that can be performed on the issue are