Workflow Status Question - Changing a Status Effects Status in all Workflows

[perdue_brandon_vast-inc_com]

Hello All - 

As mentioned in the title, I am having trouble regarding changing names of workflow statuses. 

I have 3 different projects, with 2 - 3 different workflows within those projects. All of the sudden when I change the first status of a particular workflow, it copies that new status change into 3 other, different workflows (in the same/different projects.)

At the same time there are two more active workflows that do not get effected by this change. 

I understand that workflow statuses are constant throughout different projects, therefore you cannot have duplicate statuses. I don't understand why changing a (first) status in one workflow is effecting half of my other workflows. 

Any insight/guidance would be much appreciated.  

[Walter Buggenhout]

Your observation is right. Statuses are shared across your entire JIRA instance. You should NOT change the name of a status (unless this is what you explicitly want to achieve).

If you need a different status in a workflow, you should not rename an existing status in any way, but select a different status instead, attach the transitions to the newly added status and remove the old status from your workflow.

If the status you want/need does not exist yet, you should of course create the new status first and then proceed.

See also this related question e.g.

[Walter Buggenhout]

Probably I was not clear enough. Proceed as follows:

1. Open one of your 3 workflows in diagram view
2. Add the status you want to as your initial status to the workflow (select existing or create a new one)
3. Drag the Create issue transition from the old initial status to the new status.
4. Connect any outgoing transitions of the old initial status to the new initial status as well
5. As soon as your old initial status does not have any transitions attached to it, you will now be able to remove it.
6. Save/Publish your workflow

Repeat the same process for your other workflows.

[perdue_brandon_vast-inc_com]

Walter - 

Thanks for the response. I don't want this first status to be the same in any of my workflows, however, as soon as I make a change in one workflow it changes/duplicates in 3 other workflows. 

JIRA will not allow me to delete the status because it is the first status in the workflow. Any suggestions as to how I can have 3 different first statuses in 3 different workflows?

[Mikael Sandberg]

As Walter said, you can create a new status and then add it you the workflow you want to change. Note that you cannot delete the first status from an active workflow, so you need to make a copy of it first. After that you can move the Create action to point to the new status. Repeat this for all of your workflows that you want to have different starting status for. Once you are done modifying the workflow you need to replace it with the existing one by changing the workflow scheme for your project, see https://confluence.atlassian.com/adminjiraserver075/configuring-workflow-schemes-935391417.html