Best practice on using Resolution

[Ian Rees]

In the Atlassian support article, updated April 2023, Best practices on using the "Resolution" field it says 

There are many native functionalities in Jira that depend on the "Resolution" field. Some of them are (and they are not restricted to):

• Issues having its key strikethrough on boards;
• Reports about issues (for example, "Created vs resolved");
• System filters (for example, "Open Issues").

Well I know that used to be the case but I have tested the behaviour and now see that the first and third on that list are now driven by the Status Category and NOT the Resolution. This is a detrimental change in my opinion but it begs the question, what is the Resolution field now for,

[Ste Wright · Accepted solution]

Hi @Ian Rees 

There's still multiple reasons for needing the resolution field (some systemic) - two simple ones are:

• It sets the resolution date, which is essentially the completion date of an issue for cycle time, lead time, etc
• It avoids the need for multiple "Done" statuses

Ste

[Ian Rees]

Hi Stephen - yes I get that but even then looking back at historical data I have foound issues with a Resolution but no Resolution Date and vice versa and can't really imagine any circumstances where that can - but I'm posting that in another questions.

I guess I meant in terms of Jira features what is its use - as you say I use it to indicate the end of a cycle time but since Jira now seems to treat Status Category as Done, I am having difficulty justifying to my users why they need to set the Resolution correctly in their workflow.

And also I'm curious that my experience is different from what the Atlassian page says and that was updated only 3 months ago

[Ste Wright]

Status Category isn't a date though, you'd need to set a date field (somewhere) to use as part of lead/cycle time (beyond the reports in Jira which use resolution/resolution date directly).

Your experience with the above...

• Issues having its key strikethrough on boards;

• Reports about issues (for example, "Created vs resolved");

• System filters (for example, "Open Issues").

...depends on a few things:

• Strikethroughs might not be driven by resolution in Company-managed JSW boards, but it might differ for Team-managed and JWM
• The "system filter" is still still driven by resolution, so not sure what you're seeing here - but for me, it remains resolution = Unresolved

For me, the two points above are sufficient reason to keep using resolution :)

Ste

[Ian Rees]

yes company managed cloud - strikethough driven by status category. This is a migration from on premise Jira Server where strikethough and "Open Issues" was driven by resolution which I preferred. Also I have written training and articles for users based on that. I just thought I would recheck Open Issues because I have definitely seen in the company managed cloud version, it driven by Status Category but just created a new project and can't see an Open Issues or My Open Issues filter anywhere. so maybe that isn't a default filter anymore

[Ste Wright]

Hi @Ian Rees 

The "system filter" refers to one of the default filters on the main search page (Filters > View All Issues), which is also present in Project search pages (select Issues from the left-hand Project menu).

Ste

[Ian Rees]

Thanks - and yes Open Issues filter still driven by resolution which is good.  I must have imagined seeing it driven by StatusCategory !  So it is just the strikethrough that is driven by StatusCategory on Company manages projects in Cloud. I wish it wasn't but there you go. Thanks for your input Stephen