Unable to release Release????

[Gavin McMenemy]

Hello! 

I'm very confused about something that we're seeing in our environment. We have a Release which is finished and we want to "Release" it. I can see the release button but when I click it I get the following prompt. 


The 4 issues are the epics which make up the release (every part of it) and every Epic is Closed and every story and task inside each epic is Closed. I cannot make it more closed. 

In our workflow issues are considered finished when they reached Closed so what do I have to do to release this Release? Click Ignore? 

We're trying to get more project management in place so this is really the first time we've seen this. We haven't tried this method before. 

We're looking to make better use of the Timeline and it's getting very clutterd on ther because we can't Release our releases!

[Gavin McMenemy · Accepted solution]

In case anyone comes across this thread. This post from Bryce was the most helpful. 

I still say that it is not well communicated that the Resolution field is important if you're using features like Timelines and Roadmaps and it would certaily simplify Jira management to: 

1. Make this explicit

or

2. Remove the need.

Here's the link to the relevant post. 
https://community.atlassian.com/t5/Jira-Software-questions/Re-Re-Unable-to-release-Release/qaq-p/2680011/comment-id/1012217#M1012217

I followed the instructions and used the post functions to control the resolution field. Releases now work without an error appearing - meaning that I am comfortable delegating release management to the responsible (non-admin) users.

[Bryce Lord]

Hi @Gavin McMenemy ,

I would start by making sure that a resolution is being applied to your epics when you move them to the Closed status.

The resolution should appear next to the Closed status on the issue, as shown in the orange box in the image below.

If no resolution appears here, then Jira still considers this issue as open. You'll need to set the resolution either through a workflow post function or you can put the resolution on a transition screen when the issue is transitioning to Closed for people to select.

Hope this helps!

Bryce

[Gavin McMenemy]

I have admin and project privs

What's interesting is that this field DOES NOT appear. I've looked through the hidden fields and I can't see a resolution field although it does appears in the list of issue attributes. Meanwhile I've been able to release another Release of my own.... without this issue.


We've no interest in this field and it seems a touch redundant to require it when we already Completed an issue. Do you know how I can display the the resolution field? 

I guess I can set an automation to set the Resolution once the issue has reached its desired status.

[Bryce Lord]

Hi @Gavin McMenemy ,

The reason the field isn't showing is that it hasn't been set, which is why these issues are appearing as "unresolved" in the Release. Without a resolution, these issues are still considered open even if they are in a closed status.

I'm not sure about the other Release, but I would guess that there aren't any Epics in that Release.

Below is a link for how to go about fixing this, it's under the "Solution" section and involves adjusting the configuration of the Epic workflow: Best Practices on using the resolution field

Good luck!

Bryce

[Gavin McMenemy]

Thanks @Bryce Lord 

It was my release so it contained all epics containing stories... 

Thanks for that article, couldn't find it yesterday. I will take a look at that. As we're not making use of the Resolution field I don't really want to expose it to the team and I want it automatically set so they never need to look at it.

Seems very strange to me that Jira has two statuses to control issue completeness.
And that this is the first time we've had any noticeable issue. 

Several edits because my typing is particularly sucky today.