No Check Mark Displayed for a Resolved Issue

Question

Why do I see a resolved issue in Structure, but there's no green check mark, which usually indicates that an issue is resolved?

This article answer these questions as well:

• Why do I see a check mark on a unresolved issue?
• Why does an open issue that still in the work have 100% progress indication?
• When I turn on "Unresolved" filter button, why do I see some of the resolved issues anyway?

Answer

The JIRA's notion of a "Resolved Issue" (or "Completed Issue") can be quite confusing. The source of confusion is that an issue is considered to be resolved based on its Resolution field, not based on its Status:

• Unresolved means that the Resolution field is empty, regardless of issue Status.
• Resolved means that the Resolution field has some value, regardless of issue Status.

If an issue has a non-empty Resolution field (i.e. considered Resolved):

• The green check mark is displayed in Structure on that issue;
• The issue is filtered out by the Unresolved button;
• The progress of the issue is 100% regardless of other fields.

See also: Flags Column, Filtering, Progress Column

Problems Caused By Custom Workflows

The default workflow in JIRA contains the "Resolved" status and if you select this status, JIRA requires you to select some non-empty value for the Resolution field too. Thus, the issue gets the Resolved status and becomes truly resolved (or completed), because it has a value in the Resolution field.

The confusion may arise, if in a custom workflow / screen configuration, Resolution field is not set as required or not added to the screens, associated with transitions to the Resolved status. In this case, a user may move an issue to the Resolved status, but the issue will still be unresolved/uncompleted, because the Resolution field is still empty.

If you have such a configuration, in the Structure this problem may manifest itself when you are trying to use the Unresolved filter button (which works as a shorthand for filtering using JQL: "Resolution is EMPTY"). The issues with the Resolved status but with no Resolution will still be visible even if you switch the filter on.

Solution:

1. Edit your workflow: in all transitions to a status that should be considered resolved, use a screen with the Resolution field.
2. In all transitions to a status that should not be considered resolved, use "Clear Resolution" step.
3. Make Resolution field required. (It will matter only if Resolution is added to the screen configuration.)
4. Check all screens - "Edit Issue" screen and all screens not mentioned in (1) above should not contain Resolution field.

Problems Caused By Manually Added "Unresolved" Resolution Value

To make matters worse, sometimes JIRA administrators add a new resolution option, named "Unresolved". Then, for example, on the workflow's "Reopen" step configuration, instead of clearing the Resolution, they change it to this "Unresolved" value.

The problem is that the new "Unresolved" resolution is still a non-empty value, and any issue having this value in the Resolution field will be considered resolved, by JIRA and Structure and other plugins.

But on the issue page, the user will see Resolution: Unresolved. So it will be practically impossible to distinguish this resolved (completed) issue from the issues which are really unresolved (have empty Resolution field).

Solution:

1. Use JIRA's Bulk Change to clear resolution from all issues that have Resolution "Unresolved".
2. Remove resolution "Unresolved".