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Control your Work Item transitions

Business

Workflows give you control over how work items move through your process. Think of it as creating guardrails that ensure work follows your team's agreed-upon path, with the right people making decisions at each step.

This means you can:

  • Create clear paths for work items to follow.
  • Ensure important transitions are only made by the right team members.
  • Prevent work items from moving backward in your process unexpectedly.
  • Control which states can receive new work items.

Set up your Workflow​

Getting started with Workflows takes just a few minutes:

  1. Head over to your Project Settings and select Workflows from the right pane.

  2. You'll see all your workflow states listed. Each state represents a stage in your process (like "Backlog," "Todo," "In Progress").

  3. For each state, you'll notice a toggle labeled Allow new work items. This controls whether team members can create new items directly in this state. Toggle it off for states that should only be reached through progression (like "Ready to Publish"). Allow new work items

  4. Under the state, click Add permitted state change to define possible transitions.

    • When you click this option, a menu appears where you can select which states this work item can move to next. For example, from "Backlog," you might allow transitions to "Todo" or "Sprint Backlog". Add permitted state change

    • Click Add reviewers to specify Members who are permitted to make this change. If you don't add any reviewers, any team member can move items to this state. Add reviewers

  5. Add all the state transitions your team needs, building out your complete workflow.

  6. When everything looks good, click the Live toggle at the top right to activate your workflow.

  7. The three-dot menu in the top-right provides additional options: Additional options

    • Reset workflow
      Removes all your custom workflow settings
    • View change history
      See a log of modifications made to your workflow

How Workflows work​

Once your workflow is live, you'll notice some changes in how work items behave:

  • A special icon appears next to the state column, indicating a workflow is active. Transition active icon
  • Items can only be created in states where "Allow new work items" is enabled.
  • Members will only be able to move items to the states you've permitted.
  • If someone tries to make a state change they're not authorized for, they'll see a blocker message. Transition blocker