What is the point of "Closed" vs. "Canceled" or "Resolved"?

[Eric H15]

TLDR: Closed vs. Canceled and Resolved is confusing. Trying to learn why it exists and how to use it appropriately.

Detail:

I'm new to Jira service management. My old ticket system had three statuses:

• Unassigned
• Open
• Closed

In the old system you could return from Closed to Open.

While trialing Jira, I'm adjusting to Canceled and Resolved. I like these statuses and can work with them. However after this, there is a Closed  status which I am having difficulty adjusting to. Some issues:

1. Once a ticket is closed, you can't open it back up. This seems counterintuitive. I may think I have an issue resolved, only for it to pop up a week later.

2. Having two layers means I have to walk through additional steps to close a ticket. I must set it to Canceled or Resolved, and then perform another step of closing the ticket.

3. If I set an automation to auto-close Canceled or Resolved tickets, then I receive  unwanted notifications about the tickets closing.

What is the point of this extra layer? Do supervisors review all resolved tickets and mark them as closed? Does it give time for customers to respond so you can re-open later? Why can't I just re-open a ticket after it closes instead of having it locked down?

Overall this extra layer is creating more work and noise. I'm sure Jira had a reason for doing this...some ITSM standard perhaps.

So some questions:

1. Why the two layers? Is it an ITSM standard?

2. How is it supposed to be used? I'm guessing that a large service center may have a supervisor reviewing resolved tickets before manually closing...?

3. How are people actually using it? Are you manually closing tickets? Using automation to do so? Creating your own workflow without the Closed status? Perhaps you never close tickets? Just curious.

[Joseph Chung Yin]

@Eric H15 -

First - Resolved/Cancelled/Closed  (In General)

In JSM, an issue is "Resolved", it means it is completed however it is still waiting for customers to determine if the solution truly resolved his/her asks.  Once customers confirmed "YES", then the issue should be moved to "Closed".  You are correct that if customers confirmed "NO", then the issue is automatically re-opened by design.  On the other hand, "Cancelled" is typically used for the issue ask is cancelled by the customers as he/she no longer requires assistance on his/her original ask.

Second - A closed issue cannot be re-opened question

In JSM, you can modify the out of the box default workflow to create transition back to OPEN from CLOSED.  The application on WF design is completely open to how one wants to implement it to meet his/her operations needs.

Third - Too many steps to close a ticket question

Again, you can modify the default workflow to meet your needs.  Example - simplify the WF by removing the default statuses.

Forth - Too many notifications question

In JSM (just like Jira), you can custom the project's notification scheme to remove the default notifications on different event types to meet your team's need.

Lastly - Issue closing process question

In JSM, it is the agent assigned to the issue should be the one who move the issue to "Closed".  Typically, you don't need someone else to close the issue other than the assigned agent.

Hope this makes sense and helps.

Best, Joseph Chung Yin

Jira/JSM Functional Lead, Global Infrastructure Applications Team

Viasat Inc.

[RJ Foltz]

Hi, I want to have one selection to resolve/close a ticket, not multiple.  It's my understanding that if using resolved, you have to have a resolution reason for ticket to show resolved, however, this doesn't close a ticket.  If you close a ticket rather than resolve a ticket, it's sounds like the ticket can't be reopened.  Please clarify.  

[Joseph Chung Yin]

@Eric H15 -

You are welcome...

Best, Joseph

[Eric H15]

Thank you very much Joseph, this is extremely helpful and educational.