What You Should Know about Workflow Rules

    Rules work with single-choice list fields

You cannot define rules that apply to any other type of field, including multiple-choice list fields.

    Rules are defined per project

All Web views of a project share the same workflow rules. You cannot disable the workflow rules for specific Web views. The rules are either enabled for all views or disabled for all views.

    Rules can impact performance

Defining a large number of rules may impact the performance of Web views.

Using workflow rules to set default values is a good choice if you have a small number of rules and are not limited by resources (server, network, end-user computers).

    Rules are evaluated when issues are loaded and created

By default, workflow rules are evaluated when an issue is loaded or created (note that when you save an issue it is immediately re-loaded, triggering the workflow rules). You can force rules to be evaluated when a user changes the value of one of the fields specified in the condition. Evaluating rules on field changes has a potentially higher performance cost. However, if you want to implement dependent fields, you should evaluate the workflow rule on field changes.

    Changes to choice lists can break workflow rules

If you remove choices from a choice list, or change the meaning of a choice, rules that use the choice list may stop working or result in unexpected behavior.

    By default, rules apply to all users

To build group-specific rules, use the macro <User in Group> in your conditions.

    The order of rules is important

Rules are evaluated in the order they are listed in the Workflow Editor. For example, in the default workflow, the rule Admins-<Any> is the first rule in the list. This ensures that any member of the Admin group can make any change to the Progress field.

If the Admins-<Any> rule is last, then an analyst who is also a member of Admins does not have full administrator permissions for changing the Progress field. The stricter rules are evaluated first, limiting the changes the analyst can make.

Related Topics

What Can You Do with Workflow Rules?

What is a Workflow Rule?

Creating Rule Templates

Defining Conditions

Defining Rules