Cannot Add Transitions or Delete Steps in Draft Workflows
Platform Notice: Cloud, Server, and Data Center - This article applies equally to all platforms.
Support for Server* products ended on February 15th 2024. If you are running a Server product, you can visit the Atlassian Server end of support announcement to review your migration options.
*Except Fisheye and Crucible
Problem
When editing a draft workflow, some statuses/steps can't be deleted and outgoing transitions can't be added. This makes these steps and statuses useless.
Cause
Jira contains specific code that removes the ability to perform these edits to occur on draft workflows.
A snippet from the workflow documentation:
Limitations when editing an active workflow
Please note that the following limitations apply when editing an active workflow (i.e. a draft workflow):It is not possible to edit the workflow name (only the description) if a workflow is active.
Workflow steps cannot be deleted.
A step's associated Status cannot be edited.
If a step has no outgoing transitions (Global transitions are not considered), it cannot have any new outgoing transitions added.
A step's Step ID cannot be changed.
Related JAC Ticket to Edit name for active workflows and workflow schemes - JRASERVER-19813Getting issue details... STATUS
Resolution
There are two different options:
- Publish the workflow after all steps are populated with transitions.
OR - Edit the workflow in a disabled state (either copy it or disable the workflow scheme).