Summary

Jira prevents certain edits on draft workflows. 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.

Options to bypass Jira workflow editor limitations

There are two different options.

1. Edit the workflow in a disabled state
   1. Copy the workflow and edit the copy
   2. Or disable the workflow scheme
2. Publish the workflow after all steps are populated with transitions

Cloud only: Use the new workflow editor

In Jira Cloud, to add an Outgoing transition, you can perform the below steps.

• Switch to the New workflow Editor
• Add the outgoing transition to the desired status
• Click on Update workflow
• Click on "..." (more options) > "Open workflow in Old editor" to switch back
• Once you are on the Old editor you will see a warning message stating "You are editing a draft workflow based on an old active workflow. Publishing this draft may override the latest active workflow."
• Click on Discard Draft to view the changes in the Old Workflow Editor

Workflow editor limitations

Below is 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 feature request ticket to Edit name for active workflows and workflow schemes:

• For Jira Server/Data Center: JRASERVER-19813 - Getting issue details... STATUS
• For Jira Cloud: JRACLOUD-19813 - Getting issue details... STATUS