Statuses are used to represent the position of the issue in its workflow. A workflow represents a business process, represented as a set of stages that an issue goes through to reach a final stage (or one of the final stages). Each stage in the workflow (called a workflow step) is linked to an issue status, and an issue status can be linked to only one workflow step in a given workflow. JIRA ships with a set of default statuses that are used by the default workflow. You can add your own statuses and customise the workflow, as well as change the names, descriptions and icons of existing Statuses. On this page:

Defining a New Status

1. Log in as a user with the JIRA Administrators global permission.
2. Select Administration > Issues > Statuses to open the View Statuses page, which lists all statuses, along with a form underneath to add a new status.
   Keyboard shortcut: g + g + start typing statuses
   
3. Complete the Add New Status  form towards the end of the page:
   • Name — specify a short phrase that best describes your new status.
   • Description — add a sentence or two to describe what workflow step this status represents.
   • Icon URL — supply the path of a image that has been placed somewhere inside <jira-application-dir>/images/icons of your JIRA Installation Directory or from an accessible URL.
     
     JIRA ships with a number of images that can be used as status icons. These images are located in the <jira-application-dir>/images/icons  directory of your JIRA Installation Directory:
     
     • status_assigned.gif
     • status_closed.gif
     • status_document.gif
     • status_down.gif
     • status_email.gif
     • status_generic.gif
     • status_information.gif
     • status_inprogress.gif
     • status_invisible.gif
     • status_needinfo.gif
     • status_open.gif
     • status_reopened.gif
     • status_resolved.gif
     • status_trash.gif
     • status_unassigned.gif
     • status_up.gif
     • status_visible.gif

Next steps:

Now you will need to associate your new status with a workflow 'step'. See Configuring Workflow.

Deleting a Status

The View Statuses page can be used to edit and delete Statuses. Please note that only Inactive statuses (i.e. statuses that are not used in any workflow) can be deleted.

A Delete link for deleting a Status will only appear next to the Edit link of an Inactive status.