Allow users to delete stories

[Nicolás Straub]

I am starting a project using Jira, and just found out that my users can't delete stories.

How can I make it so that users can delete any story, without adding them to the admins group?

[Aaron Pavez _ServiceRocket_ · Accepted solution]

Hi @Nicolás Straub 

By user you mean people with project access?

You need ot look into the Delete Issues permission in your permissions scheme.

https://support.atlassian.com/jira-cloud-administration/docs/manage-project-permissions/

Regards

[Karan Sachdev · Accepted solution]

Hey @Nicolás Straub

Good day!

To being with, what type of project are you using? Is it a company-managed or a team-managed one?

If it's a company managed one, go to Project Settings > permissions. Modify the Delete Issues permission and allow it to another group or project role. Details here: Permissions for company-managed projects

If it's a team-managed project, you will have to create a custom project role where you can allow the delete operation. Then assign this project role to the users. Details here (Check the "Duplicate a role and its permissions" section): 

Manage how people access your team-managed project

PS. Deletion of a work item is a permanent and irreversible change. It is now converted to a 2-step process where the users must type the keyword DELETE to avoid accidental deletion. However, if done, there is no way to recover those work items.

As such, it is generally advisable to grant only a few authorised users the permission to delete work items.

Thanks!

[Nicolás Straub]

Thank you for your response.

I tried the steps above. As pointed out in another answer, I'm on a free plan, which apparently precludes me from editing permissions on my projects.

I ended up adding the users to the org admin group, but they still can't delete stories.

Would appreciate some more help. I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong

[John Funk]

Hi Nicolás,

The recommendation is to never let users delete work items in Jira. Instead, I use Done category statuses in the workflows like Canceled or Abandoned or Aborted or something like that. Then add a post function to the transition to that status to set the Resolution field to Won't Do.  Otherwise, someone will always eventually delete something that was critical and shouldn't have. 

Now, having said that, if you are on a Free plan, then you can't control permissions anyway. So if you are not going to upgrade to a paying plan (Standard or Premium), adjusting your workflow would be the best bet. 

[Nicolás Straub]

This does not answer my question.

[Nicolás Straub]

Well, I guess, in a way it does answer it... Since I'm on a free plan, I'll just have to make every user an admin

[Joe Pitt]

Do not delete issues. When you delete it is GONE. Hardly a week goes by without someone wanting to restore an issue. Deleting issues will come back and bite you when it is the most inconvenient. I suggest closing with a resolution value of Deleted anything you want to delete. I implement a special transition only the project lead can execute and it requires filling in a reason field from a select list (such as entered in error, OBE, Duplicate, Other) and explanation text.

Deleting issues destroys historical data. Missing issue numbers will eventually cause a question about what it was and why was it deleted even if it was done properly. Missing data always brings in the question of people hiding something that may have looked bad.

The only viable way to restore an issue is to create a new instance of JIRA and restore a backup that has the issues. Then export them to a csv file and import them to your production instance. You will lose the history.

[Nicolás Straub]

This does not answer my question