How dangerous is changing a workflow? Plus why can't we backup and restore a single project?

[Louis Mehr]

Hi,

I need to make some workflow changes in one of our Projects 

I have set up a trial project to perform a dry run.  All I now need to do is switch the workflow scheme over to the new scheme an a live project.

When I start the process of changing the workflow I see a warning message telling me to backup before making changes.

I discussed this with IT and  found that they can backup but there is no provision for restore of a single project.  Even worse, we are a multi-company organisation with a single cloud licensing arrangement.  This means that restore affects other companies in the organisation.

I think the simple answer is to ignore the warning to back up and just make workflow changes with care.

However,  I just wanted to check before doing so.

Also, why does this particular operation come with a warning to back up first?

Thanks

/Louis

[John Funk · Accepted solution]

Hey Louis - I rarely do the backup unless it is a MAJOR change that will affect thousands of issues. And in cases like that, I usually just create a copy of the Workflow, make the changes in the copy and then implement the copy. 

Then if it all goes awry, I can put the original back in place. 

[Louis Mehr]

Hi John,  good point but my main concern is the data getting corrupted.   The new workflow is already deployed in existing projects.  Thanks! 

[John Funk]

The data will only get corrupted if you have issues in a status in the current workflow that does not exist in the workflow you are moving to. You can easily do a search on those and even download to a spreadsheet so you can see which ones are affected if something goes wrong. Much simpler than trying to recover a backup in my opinion. 

[Andrew Laden · Accepted solution]

You do have to be careful in there are cases where you will not be able to update a current workflow. You will have to make a copy. In particular, if you are adding a transition out of a status that previously had no outbound transitions, you will not be able to that in an edit/publish.

I usually run into this where I have a created a End status that doesn't have a way to undo/reset it, If I want to add one, I have to copy the workflow, update it and then change the scheme to use the new workflow.

[Kerem Caglar [Solveka]]

Hi,

That depends on the difference between the current and new workflows.

If you have removed any status that exists in the current workflow from the new one, and if you have existing issues onthe status, you have to be very carefull while migrating.  You will need to tell jira how removed statuses must be mapped to the ones in the new workflow. If you read all the instructions on each page through the migration wizard and configure it correctly you should not have any problems. But if you just click next button on each step, you might end up in a situation that you would not want to be. I know a case that after workflow migration thousands of closed issues were in open status. 

Kerem

[Louis Mehr]

Hi Kerem,  that makes sense.  I checked further and see that three of the workflows will change when the new workflow scheme is selected.  No states will be lost.  There is one additional new state - "In Review", so this should be a straightforward switch to a different workflow scheme.  Thanks! 

[Louis Mehr]

Thanks for the responses! Workflow scheme updated successfully.