Transition an issue

Before you begin

Before you can transition issues to columns on a board, your Jira administrator or board administrator will have already mapped workflow statuses to your board's columns. To know more about configuring these mappings, see Configuring columns.

Also, you can only transition an issue if you have project permission to move that issue to the status in the Jira workflow to which the column is mapped. Jira Software will respect your workflow configuration, and will trigger all your workflow validations, conditions, functions, and notifications when you transition issues (see Workflows for more information.) However, note that boards currently don't auto-assign issues to you.

Transition an open issue

Transitioning an issue can mean moving it to another status, or performing a "looped" transition where the transition allows you to perform an action but keep the issue in its current status. We refer to these looped transitions as issue actions.

To transition an issue to a new status

1. Select the Status menu at the top of the issue.

2. Select the new status for the issue.

You can also see the issue workflow by selecting View workflow.

To perform an issue action (looped transition)

If you only have one action, select the name of the action at the top of the issue.

If you have more than one issue action:

1. Select the Actions button at the top of the issue.

2. Select the action to perform.

Transition linked issues and subtasks

If the issue you're working on has subtasks or linked issues, you can transition them without having to leave the issue you're viewing. Click the status of a linked issue or subtask and choose the relevant status or transition.

Transition on a board

1. Click the Jira icon > Projects > then select the relevant project.

2. In the Active sprints (Scrum projects) or on the Kanban board (Kanban projects), transition an issue by dragging and dropping the issue from one column to another.
   When you start dragging an issue, you can only transition the issue to columns whose backgrounds turn blue. When the issue is hovered over the target column, the blue background turns green.

3. If a dialog box opens for your workflow transition status, complete all mandatory fields (indicated by a red asterisk) before submitting the form.

If the target column is associated with more than one status, when you hover the issue over that column, each possible transition will appear as a separate section with a dashed outline. Complete the transition to the appropriate status by dropping the issue onto the section of the column.

Transition multiple issues

Depending on the following conditions, you can press the Shift or Ctrl key to select and transition multiple issues from the backlog to the next status in your project's workflow:

• You have the transition issues permission.

• The statuses of the issues are already mapped to the board's columns.

• Your project's workflow supports the particular transition for the multiple issues selected, and all transition conditions are met.

• The issues you're transitioning have the same set of transitions.

• The issues you're transitioning don't have any associated transition screen.

Transition issues with subtasks in the Kanban backlog

• To transition both the parent issue and its subtasks, drag and drop the parent issue while it's collapsed to the corresponding section.

• To transition just the parent issue or a subtask, expand the parent issue first, then drag and drop only the parent issue or the sub-task to the corresponding section.

• If all subtasks of an issue have been completed, you need to resolve the parent issue itself. When you move the last subtask to the Done column, Jira Software will prompt you to move the parent issue as well. If you resolved the subtasks in native Jira Software instead, a button will be displayed on the parent issue the next time you visit the Active sprints page.