How do workflows, issue types, and request types connect?

Requests submitted by your help seekers are called issues inside Jira Service Management, where your agents work.

Request types are the types of requests that can be raised in your service project, such as ‘Get IT help’ or ‘Request a new account’. They manage the specific settings of an issue (such as naming, portal customization, and work categories). Learn more about request types.

Issue types manage the foundational settings of an issue (such as workflows). For example, connecting an issue type to a workflow allows any issue with that issue type to use that workflow. Issue types can be shared across projects. Learn more about issue types.

Learn more about difference between request types and issue types.

A workflow is the set of statuses and transitions that an issue will move through as it’s being worked on by your team. For example, an issue might transition from the ‘To do' status to the ‘In-progress’ status, and finally to 'Done’. Workflows typically represent the work processes of your organization, and can be customised to suit your needs. Learn more about customising workflows.

Workflow schemes define a specific set of relationship between issue types and workflows. A workflow scheme defines a set of associations between a workflow and an issue type. Within a workflow scheme, you can associate issue types with different workflows and then share this same scheme with multiple projects on your site. Learn more about workflow schemes.

Connections

Every request type in Jira Service Management is connected to an issue type, and each issue type is connected to a workflow - all of these together form your issue.

If we break that down into parts it looks like this:

One issue type can be used for many different request types. For example, the Purchase issue type could be used for both the Request new hardware AND Request new software request types.

However, one request type can only be connected to one issue type at a time. For example, the Request new software request type could use the Purchase issue type OR another issue type, but not both.

Because each request type can only have one issue type, they can also have only one workflow. For example, the Request new software request type could use the Service request workflow OR the Incident management workflow, but not both.

One workflow can be used for many different issue types. So the Service request workflow could be used for the Purchase issue type, Service issue type AND the Help issue type.

One issue type can only be connected to one workflow at a time. For example, the Purchase issue type could use the Service request workflow OR the Incident management workflow, but not both.

• Learn how to change the workflow and issue type of a request type

• Learn how to change the issue type of a workflow