What is a workflow status?

Statuses are the “steps” of a team’s workflow. For example, a workflow of Backlog → Triage → To Do → In progress → QA → Done would have five statuses.

Statuses provide clear stages for team members, ensuring everyone understands where a work item stands within the workflow.

Things to keep in mind

• Status categories: All statuses, even custom statuses you create yourself, must belong to one of three status categories – To do, In progress, and Done. These categories are represented by the colors grey, yellow, and green respectively, so you’ll always see statuses shown in one of these colors (this can’t be customized in any way). Status categories impact how work items are visualized in lists, reports, and boards.

• Notify users when updating statuses: Be mindful of updating status names, especially when the status is already in use by a team’s workflow. Updating a status name can confuse users, particularly if they don’t know what’s changed, or why. If you do rename a status, make sure to inform your users so they know what to expect.

• Reports: Some reports are based on status names, so renaming statuses can also impact how reports are displayed.