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An Introduction to Workflows

Zenhub Workflows allows teams to sync the pipeline state of an issue in multiple Workspaces. By setting up a Workflow, you can automate the movement of issues between different Workspaces. This ensures Boards are always up to date reflecting the most current picture of progress in every teams Workspace.

Benefits of Workflows

Here are a few ways Workflows help teams:

• Provides management with a portfolio wide view. Workflows allow management and leadership to create their own management view that is always up to date, reflecting the progress of individual teams in a single view. This reduces time spent navigating between different Workspaces to understand progress.
• Ensures efficient hand-offs between teams. Workflows removes the dependency of manual reporting for hand-offs between different teams. Example: If an issue is moved from “in-progress” to “ready for QA” on the development team’s workspace, it can trigger the movement of that same issue from “to be triaged” to “backlog” on the QA team’s board, signalling the issue is ready for review.
• Eliminates status update meetings. Workflows automatically update the status and progress of issues across Workspaces. This eliminates the need for status update meetings giving everyone more time to focus on their most important work.
• Improves Board hygiene. Workflows ensures your Workspaces are always up-to-date and accurate. Automated issue movement eliminates the need for manual Board updates across Workspaces ensuring Boards reflect the actual priorities the team is working on.

Workflows Key Concepts

• A user will have permission to make changes to Workflows when the have write permission to at least one repository that belongs to the Workspace.
• Select a trigger pipeline and a destination pipeline to create a connection. Issues will automatically move to the destination pipeline when placed in the trigger pipeline.
• When setting up a Workflow connection, you can choose to move a) only future issues which enter your trigger pipeline or b) move both current and future issues from your trigger pipeline to your destination pipeline.
• Circles represent a trigger pipeline, triangles represent a destination pipeline. Issues flow from trigger (circles) to destination (triangles).
• While the first pipeline on the Board "New Issues" can be set as a trigger pipeline, it is important to note that issues will only move to the destination pipeline when they are manually moved into "New Issues" pipeline. Therefore, newly created issues will not automatically move to the destination pipeline.

Setting up a Workflow

To build a Workflow in Zenhub, select the Workflows tab located in the left sidebar of the Board:

This will open up the Workflows Builder which allows you to automate your issue workflow. Your current Workspace will appear at the top of the Workflows Builder. Select your trigger pipeline and destination pipeline. When issues enter your trigger pipeline they will automatically move to the destination pipeline in a different Workspace:

When setting up a Workflow connection, this will move both current and future Issues from the trigger pipeline to the destination pipeline. If you'd only like to move future Issues which enter the trigger pipeline make sure to untick the checkbox when setting up the connection:

When moving issues into the trigger pipeline on your Board,  a notification will appear on the Board to highlight the destination pipeline and Workspace these Issues have automatically moved to:

Removing connections

To remove an existing Workflow, select both pipelines where you can then choose Remove connection :

Workflow Rules

1. Connections cannot be made in the same Workspace. Therefore a pipeline cannot trigger issue movement in the same Workspace.

2. The closed pipeline in every Workspace cannot be selected. 

3. Multiple pipelines from the same Workspace can trigger movement into one pipeline in a separate Workspace. Example: When Issues enter the 'Done' pipeline or 'Ready for Dev' pipeline in the Design Workspace they will move to the 'Backlog' pipeline in the Engineering Workspace

4. One pipeline in Workspace A cannot trigger movement into multiple pipelines in Workspace B.