New vs old workflow editor | Demo Den | Atlassian

Quick Overview

The Jira new workflow editor sunsetting the old workflow designer in June 2026, enabling immediate publishing of draft changes, allowing deletion of statuses in active workflows, and providing a unified interface for configuring statuses, transitions, and rules, which map directly to the old editor's concepts like conditions, validators, and post-functions.

Key Points: The old Jira workflow designer will be removed starting June 2026, making the new workflow editor the standard interface. The new editor allows for instant publishing of changes without relying on drafts stored across multiple pages. Administrators can now delete statuses in active workflows, provided those statuses have no outgoing transitions (excluding global ones). The new editor unifies configuration, allowing users to set up statuses, transitions, and rules from a single view. All rules (Conditions, Validators, Post-functions) from the old editor map directly to the new editor's terminology (Restrict transition, Validate details, Perform actions). The new editor supports creating shared transitions across multiple 'From' statuses during creation, eliminating the need for the old 'Reuse transition' method. Users can restore workflows to earlier versions (e.g., V.10, V.9) which are kept available for 1 month.

Context: This video, part of the 'Demo Den Feature Demos & Q&A' series, features Darren Grant, a Senior Frontend Engineer at Atlassian, demonstrating the key differences and improvements in the new Jira workflow editor compared to the deprecated old workflow designer. The presentation focuses on enhancements to editing, publishing, rule management, and transition creation, encouraging users to migrate before the June 2026 cutoff.

Detailed Analysis

The video explains the transition from the old Jira workflow designer to the new workflow editor, which is scheduled for removal in June 2026. A major improvement in the new editor is the ability to 'Edit and publish instantly'; changes are applied directly to the active workflow instead of being saved in drafts across multiple pages, which was a limitation of the old system. This immediate publishing also removes the need to copy workflows when making changes to active ones. A significant benefit is the ability to delete statuses in active workflows, a feature previously unavailable. Furthermore, the new editor consolidates configuration, allowing users to manage statuses, transitions, and rules (formerly conditions, validators, and post-functions) in one view. For example, old 'Conditions' map to 'Restrict transition,' 'Validators' map to 'Validate details,' and 'Post-functions' map to 'Perform actions.' The process for creating shared transitions is also simplified, allowing selection of multiple 'From' statuses when creating a new transition, unlike the old method which required adding a transition and then reusing it. Finally, users can revert to previous versions (like V.10, V.9) of the workflow, which are stored for one month.