What is JIRA Workflow

Workflow is a set of activities which are performed to track the status and the transition of an issue during the lifecycle of an issue.

Where transition represents some work in the form of link between the two statuses when an issue moves from one status to another.

Status: Status determines the impact of the work on the issue which is filed by the tester.

In Jira tool, following are the phases that occur in the workflow:

• TODO state
• In Progress state
• Done state

There are two activities performed in the TODO state:

• Issue creation
  When the tester finds a defect, then they log the defect in Jira tool. Once the defect is logged in a Jira tool, the unique ticket identification number is generated by a Jira tool. This process is known as issue creation.
• Summary and additional details
  Issue creation requires some additional information which is to be added or updated to an issue such as issue description, priority, severity, components impacted, subtasks, upload screenshots, email history, etc. After adding all the details to an issue, Jira tool assigns the status as a TODO state.

There are three activities performed in the In Progress state:

• Assignee
  When the issue is created, then it is assigned to a person or a team. After assigning the issue to a person, then the status changes to In Progress state.
• Work Review
  Work on the issue is first reviewed and monitored by the issue reporter, assignee, and other project's management folks. When the developer removes an issue, then it is first unit tested by the developer, and then the code review team reviews it. During the work review activity, the status remains in the In Progress state.
• Quality Analysis
  After code review, the changes are verified by the quality analysis team, which includes regression testing. If the QA team finds any problem in the changes, then the issue is reassigned to the developer otherwise QA team will close the issue which states that the issue has been fixed. During the Quality Analysis, the status remains in the In Progress state.

One activity is performed in the Done state:

• Release to production Once the product has been developed and tested, then the product is released in the market. When the product is released in the market, then the status is changed to Done state.

JIRA Workflow can also be referred to as a defect lifecycle. The defect lifecycle is shown below:

• Open issue: When the issue is created, then the issue is assigned to the software developer, and they start working on it.
• In Progress issue: The software developers start working on the issue.
• Resolved issue: Issue is resolved by the software developer but waiting for the verification by the tester. If the verification is successful, then the issue is closed; otherwise, the issue gets reopened.
• Reopened issue: When the software developer did not resolve the issue as per the requirements, then the issue comes in a reopened state.
• Close issue: When the software developer correctly resolves the issue and verified by the software tester, then the issue will be closed.