How to add new issue status category?

[Inna S]

We've defined a column on a Kanban board to park all the 'not to be done' Initiatives.

Trying to map this column to the state, I see no reasonable match. 

So I try to create a new state 'Graveyard' for these item. And the prompt has 3 options of the State Category that I have to choose from: To Do, In Progress, Done.

The Graveyard does not fall into any of these. 

And while I certainly can create a filter or add yet another custom field to mark items that reached their 'will not be done' stage, this would be an ugly workaround. 

I saw some discussion on the subject here, but it was a couple of years ago and it did not have the satisfactory answer.

So what is the solution for 

a) 'not to be done' status

b) adding custom status categories

Thank you

[Walter Buggenhout · Accepted solution]

Hi @Inna S,

2 things here: status categories are:

• to do (grey) > means no work has been done yet and issue waits to be started.
• in progress (blue) > means an issue is actively being worked on.
• done (green) > means no work is to be done anymore.

You cannot extend that list.

However, Jira has the concept of resolution for this. One of the default resolutions is won't fix. Which would perfectly fit your needs. While the status category indicates (for done issues) that no more work is needed, your resolution explains how it was put in that state.

This is why in every workflow transition into a done status, you should either set the resolution field automatically to the desired value, or let your users choose the desired resolution from a transition screen.

Hope this helps!

[Inna S]

Thank you, @Walter Buggenhout .

Makes some sense. Not clear why it is not available by default.

Thanks!

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

The categories are fixed because your teams don't need any others.

• To do = new item, someone needs to look at it
• In progress = someone is looking at it
• Done = we don't need to do anything more here

You can always describe any issue as falling into one of those three states. 

The difficult one is "done", because it's not just "done".  When humans see "done", they think "someone did something with it and fixed it", but what it really means is "nothing more needs doing", which can, of course, include "we looked, we chose to do nothing".

Your "Graveyard" is a great description, if you don't mind, I'd love to use that phrase as part of my explanations to some of our clients. 

But, in Jira, it very much does fall into "done" because it means "needs no more attention".

To re=phrase it, what is the difference between "Graveyard" (looked at it and said we won't do it) and "done" (looked at it and said we won't do it)?

[Inna S]

@Nic Brough -Adaptavist- the difference is fundamental, but I already understand Jira has its very own way at naming things. I personally take issue with this way, pun intended, but whatever. This is not the greatest problem I see with Jira, so we will have to put up with it.

Of course, go ahead with the "Graveyard" use :). We need clear and direct communication.

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

There is no difference between "it needs no more attention" and "it needs no more attention".  Much as I like the "graveyard" status, it doesn't need differentiation from the other "needs no more attention" status.

[Nicki D]

I agree with you @Inna S , as I can see reasons why you might report on graveyard and done differently. Also, there has been a resurrection from the dead before :-) and you just might want to resurrect items in graveyard, when you wouldn't want to from done.  My two cents! As indicated in my other post, I am wanting this same functionality for different reasons and I'm quite depressed that I'm not going to be able to do what I need to do now. Back to my manual export and handling of these tasks!  (Of course I might be able to entertain third part add-ins, but I've already increased expenses here at work on tooling!) 

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

It's not going to happen, unless you can come up with a very good reason for having two categories that mean the same thing.  "Graveyard" definitely fits in "needs no more attention".  What are you thinking you could add that doesn't fit in with the three current definitions?

[Inna S]

'Definition of done' would be a good point to start.

Here we have a system that does not have a clear cut definition. As a result we have a confusion and frustration.

Imagine replacing 'Done' with 'Shipped' or 'Delivered'.

Suddenly we'd have very clear understanding of the difference between the Graveyard  (will not be done) and Shipped (done and out of the door, value added). 

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

Yes, but the definition of done feeds straight into "this issue needs no more attention from the team". 

"Shipped" and "Delivered" are status that are "done" for a development team, and a mix of "in progress" and "done" for a shipping team.  There's nothing to differentiate them from "in progress" or "needs no more"

I know you think you want more status categories, but Atlassian are not going to do it unless you can define a category that is clearly not part of the the three Jira currently has.  I don't have a great imagination, but I simply can't think of one.

[Nicki D]

I can understand Atlassian is busy! For my purpose, I wish then they would create a status_changed date and not just status_category_changed because without the ability to add a new category, I am not able to report on how many days issues are in a state... instead I can only report how long they are in progress category. Which totally defeats what I am trying to do. 

[Inna S]

Wait, @Nicki D , you mean the time-in-status is not available in Jira?

What's the purpose of the status then?

[Nicki D]

Correct @Inna S . I can't get time in status!  

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

The status is an indicator of where an issue is in its lifecycle, it's pretty much the whole point of using an issue tracker.

Time in status is captured in the history, but, annoyingly, not directly exposed to us as end users in the off-the-shelf application.

It's worth looking at the apps that do time-in-status reporting in the marketplace.

[Nicki D]

Thank you @Nic Brough -Adaptavist- ! I might have to do that but for now I need to stagger my asks. I will continue to manually pull my reports for this.