Changes to a project workflow is modifying an unlinked project with a different workflow

[Audra Rowley]

Hello,

A teammate made a new project and a new workflow scheme (Workflow C) and attached it to their project (Project C).  Unfortunately, this updated two other projects (Project A & B) that have different workflow schemes.  Project A and Project B do not have the same workflow schemes which are also not using the workflow scheme of Project C.  How can changes made in Project C workflow scheme update Project A and B?  This is for company managed and cloud hosting.  

When going to the project settings, workflow, it says that these workflows are different for each project and are not shared with each other

The issue that brought this to our attention was that the Project C workflow had the initial status/step updated.  Project C went from "To Do" changed to "Review and Prioritize" (which is a new status all together).  This in turn updated Project A and B workflow scheme with "review and prioritize".   How is this possible? How can a workflow update affect 3 different projects that all have a different workflow scheme that is not shared?

[Mark Segall]

Hi @Audra Rowley - To make sure we're on the same page, there are two tiers to Workflows:

• Workflow Scheme - This is simply a means of bucketing workflows
• Workflow - The individual workflow steps

So, with this context, It's not enough that they're using a different workflow scheme for project C.  They also need to make sure that their workflow scheme is not using the same workflow as projects A & B. 

So, if you're looking at the workflow schemes for Projects A/B and Project C.  Verify that they aren't sharing the same underlying workflow.

[Audra Rowley]

Right, I should clarify.  Project A, B, and C all have their own workflow scheme:

1A Scheme - belongs to Project A with specific workflow 

2B Scheme - Belongs to Project B with specific workflow

3C Scheme - Belongs to project C with specific workflow

The workflow was changed in Project C and subsequently it changed the workflow for A&B even though they are not projects assigned to the 3C Scheme.  

[Mark Segall]

So, the underlying workflows are unique as well?  If that's the case, you may need to open a ticket with Atlassian.  There is no reason that updating a workflow that is only tied to a single workflow scheme would update other workflows.

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

There is a case where editing a workflow that is only used in project A and it affects an unrelated workflow that is only used in project B.

But it's not actually a workflow edit. 

The workflow editor allows you to edit the name of status in it, but when you do that, you're actually editing the status object.  The status are global objects, drawn into workflows from a single list.  So an edit of a status from anywhere (the global list or the workflow editor) will change the name of the status in all the workflows that use it.