2 Assign Buttons

[Lillian Shibata-Salley]

Hello - I just added a new status and transition from Open (in total have 4 possible transitions) and now I have 2 Assign fields. How do I remove one?

I prefer to have everything in the workflow dropdown.

[Lillian Shibata-Salley]

Wow that was a 'lil harsh wasn't it? Not sure where that comment went but someone had indicated that this was a bad process not to have the Assign button - guess my question is why would you build something outside a workflow in a workflow tool?? The purpose of a workflow is to minimize confusion and to ensure processes are followed so building a bod process is having other options where the user may become confused and that's what's happening. We don't want users to change assignments on the fly plus we want to have automation with different screens once a transition is selected. Can't do that on a Assign button.

[Scott Rusby]

I have the same issue. its seems from the forums that the same question is asked at least once a year, but none of the solutions work for 2017 cloud based instance.

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

The posts I found all boil down to people having added their own assign options in some way or another, usually in the workflow.

[Scott Rusby]

yep, that is exactly what i am doing. essentially anyone can add an issue to the backlog, but the next transition is it gets assigned to a dev (as well as some time estimations and other things) which puts it in the dev's task list.

to be honest i am surprised that the assign button is there by default.

[Alexey Matveev]

Hello, do you mean that you added your own Assign transition?

[Lillian Shibata-Salley]

Yes - I wanted that as part of our workflow. To be able to get users used to working through the workflow instead of just hitting assign button all the time and bypassing the workflow.

Once someone hits Assign, they can assign a developer and the JIRA goes to Analysis status.

[Alexey Matveev]

Try this one

If you want it removed for all users, then you can disable View ops bar assign link.

• Login as JIRA Administrator
• Go to Administration > Plugins > System Plugins
• Click 'Manage Plugin Modules'
• You can see 'View ops bar assign link' plugin module. Disable it.

[Lillian Shibata-Salley]

Oh ok will give that a go - confirming this will not affect Assign in transitions?

[Alexey Matveev]

It will hide the standard Assign button. You said you created your own Assign button. Your own Assign button will be still available. Anyway you can always return the standard Assign button back by enabling the plugin module.

[Lillian Shibata-Salley]

I'm on cloud and only have the Manage add-ons option and went to System add-ons but there is no option for View ops bar assign link - am I looking in the wrong place?

[Lillian Shibata-Salley]

I also did as search for "bar" and nothing comes up

[Lillian Shibata-Salley]

I guess the other question is - is there a way that I can have more than 3 items in the workflow dropdown? I'd like to add one more but don't want to add more buttons... or, alternatively do all buttons and no workflow dropdown?

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

On Cloud, you can raise a support request at https://support.atlassian.com/contact and ask them to change the default number of items to keep on screen.  If they set it to (say) 5, then up to 5 workflow actions will show before 6 and above get shoved into the "workflow" drop-down.

[Scott Rusby]

Can you then choose which workflow items go where?

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

Yes, workflow transitions have "properties", one of which you can add is "opsbar.sequence".   When drawing up the workflow options, Jira adds them to the list in low-to-high order.  (Where it has no sequence, it uses the transition id)

If you're going to use this (and I would), then give yourself some gaps - use numbers like 10010, 10020, 10030 etc, so that you have some wiggle-room later, and can add 10012 and 10016.

[Scott Rusby]

awesome, cheers for that! it answers another question i was going to ask!

[Lillian Shibata-Salley]

Thanks - I did contact support and they said they can't add the number of items in the workflow dropdown and only option is to do what you said to move things around... I have created a feature request for this and hopefully there'll be enough votes so we can configure either hiding the default Assign button or adding the number of items in the workflow dropdown.

Thanks for your help,

Lil

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

Hmm, that's a change of policy, they used to let you change the number.  Thanks for the update!

[Scott Rusby]

Just heard back from Customer support and they state that "I'm afraid removing default Assign button is not possible at this time. There is an existing feature request regarding this matter, the Ability to remove "Assign" button from issue header bar and "Assign to Me" links". 

Note the support ticket was opened in 2014, so i don't expect any fixes to land any time soon.

[Lillian Shibata-Salley]

Dang that’s unfortunate... having that defeats the purpose of trying to implement a good workflow - in our shop it’s hard to get everyone to follow the flow properly.... Serena’s Business Manager allowed us to configure security so only managers can go outside the flow and re-assign ... hope they take it under consideration....

Thanks for the update!

Lil

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

Or you could remove the redundant one you've added and use the permissions to control who can assign and be assigned.

[Lillian Shibata-Salley]

The problem is the person transitioning to the next status would assign someone but if they can just go ahead and assign, they forget to transition to the next person. That's what's happening now so they just keep changing the assigned and the JIRA is not in the correct status... The Assign should be within the transition to ensure the workflow is flowing properly.

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

So, that's a human failure, rather than the software.

There's a better way to fix it - find/write a listener to catch "issue assigned" and transition the issue if appropriate.

[Scott Rusby]

I disagree, the software is designed to be used by humans, and it is known that humans will generally take the easiest option (in this case clicking on the assign button). This is not a new thing and certainly predates the existence of Jira, as such it is a design flaw in Jira UX to know expect normal human behavior.

The better way to fix it would be to simply allow the removal of the button. finding/writing a listener is a way, but certainly not a better or easier way.

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

I disagree again.   There are many cases where you need to assign without transition, and where you need to transition without assign.

In the overwhelming majority of systems, you'll find reasons for both.  And your users just clicking "assign" and not moving things on screams that they don't really understand what they're doing.  That's not always a bad thing, but when it's a problem, automation is the answer, not "removing useful options and bludgeoning the user"

[Lillian Shibata-Salley]

I've been working on workflows for a long time and just not having the option of removing that Assign button is just causing issues for us.

Yes human error but should be configurable to fit the situation and not forced to have it there. Need the flexibility to force a workflow so the status is clear and who the owner is.  My previous workflow (agree to my management) was that the resource or development manager/supervisor was the only one who should be able to bypass flow and can move to any status or assign to anyone. This provided accurate reporting to upper management and made it much easier for users so it's not so confusing with options.

If you took out the default Assign button and we need an assign transition, we can always add a transaction with restrictions from and to its own status to be able to do so, so we don't need that mandatory button there always.

Anyhow, hoping Atlassian would consider making this more flexible to fit different scenarios for different clients.

Thanks,

Lil

[Scott Rusby]

I agree the option of the button should be there, I just think that it should be able to be removed if the admin wants it to be, as i currently want it toi be as do all the other people that have asked this exact question since 2013. this way we are not "bludgeoning the user" with 2 or three different ways to apparently do the same thing which does get confusing. that i can say from experience as i was a jira user for a couple of projects some 4-5 years ago and the admins had designed a nice workflow that kept everything in the right place, but as there were ways round the workflow it was a mess for the admin and confusing for me and other users as there were 2-3 ways of apparently doing the same thing.

it is only now i am setting up my own system that i realize what a pain it can be and why that admin wanted to leave Jira altogether.

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

This all smacks of a broken and misunderstood process where people are working on a "not my problem" basis instead of understanding what they are doing.

The vast majority of Jira users simply don't have this problem.  In fact, there was an option to remove the assign link back in Jira 3.something (if memory serves).  It was dropped in pretty much the next release because of the howls of derision.

In cases where you're finding your users are repeatedly making mistakes, training, and then automation are the right approach, not bludgeoning them by removing useful functionality.

[Scott Rusby]

ok, you enjoy that opinion.

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

It's an opinion backed with many years of experience, which includes several times where I've been paid to identify and remove hacks that get rid of the assign option when someone has done it.

But yes, we'll have to agree to differ.

[Lillian Shibata-Salley]

I've been working on workflow and automation since 1990 lol if the workflow is designed well, it's seemless, easy for new users and developers who want minimal options. You can train all you want but you'll always have handful of people that bypass. Just say'n :) I'm with Scott on this. Just asking for flexibility that's all - we're forced to use this and have to do a workaround. But yes, will have to respectfully agree to differ.

[Cory Payne]

We are having this same issue. 

In our view we are in a sense bludgeoning the users by forcing them to a see a button that may not be useful to them in the particular workflow scenario or stage.

It would also appear that by not offering a way to hide the Assign button, workflow designers and Jira administrators are forced/bludgeoned to maintain a button that may impede the clarity and precision of a perfectly designed workflow to supports the organizations specific needs.

Has there been a solution to this issue offered in the cloud? Is it perhaps possible to rename the button and modify the screen that is presented? 

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

The best solution is to not build a bad process and try to implement it this way!  That's what Cloud Jira has gone for.