Introduction

Workflows are one standout feature which help users to transform JIRA into a user-friendly system. It helps users to define a lifecycle for the issues, depending on the issue type, the purpose for which they are using JIRA, and so on. As the Atlassian documentation says at http://confluence.atlassian.com/display/JIRA/Configuring+Workflow:

A JIRA workflow is the set of steps and transitions an issue goes through during its lifecycle. Workflows typically represent business processes.

JIRA uses Opensymphony's OSWorkflow which is highly configurable, and more importantly pluggable, to cater for the various requirements. JIRA uses three different plugin modules to add extra functionalities into its workflow, which we will see in detail through this chapter.

To make things easier, JIRA ships with a default workflow. We can't modify the default workflow, but can copy it into a new workflow and amend it to suit our needs. Before we go into the development aspect of a workflow, it makes...