Dataset: Issues & Pull Requests
Entity: Issues
Field ID: past_workflow_statuses
Type: Text List
Description: The list of workflow statuses that the issue went through previously. It excludes the current workflow status the issue is in.
This field is useful for refining cycle time metrics using the Workflow Timeline field, by selecting only applicable issues.
E.g., when calculating a Cycle Time on post-development stages (QA + Staged for Release + Released + Documented/Communicated), there is no point in selecting all issues. Using this field, you can restrict the metric to issues that have previously gone through the "In Progress / Development" status.
Source: App
Transformation logic:
Jira, Trello, GitHub Projects: Generated by collecting the workflow statuses of all
status updatedevents, except the last one.ClickUp: This field will always return an empty array. ClickUp does not expose historical events on its API.
From: |
|
Github (PRs, Issues) | Repository: N/A |
Gitlab (PRs, Issues) | N/A |
Bitbucket (PRs) | N/A |
Azure DevOps (PRs, Issues) | N/A |
JIRA (Issues) | Calculated |
ClickUp (Issues) | Unavailable. ClickUp does not expose historical events. |
Trello (Issues) | Calculated |
Reporting Use Cases
The Past Workflow Statuses field is a powerful audit tool, providing a complete history of an issue's journey through your workflow. It allows you to analyze process efficiency, identify bottlenecks, and spot issues that have deviated from the standard path.
Measuring Workflow Churn: The primary use of this field is to quantify how much an issue "bounces" between different statuses before completion.
You can calculate the average number of status changes per issue with the custom formula
AVG(LENGTH(past_workflow_statuses)). A high or rising average is a strong indicator of process inefficiency, suggesting that issues are not flowing smoothly from start to finish.In a list report, a custom dimension with the formula
LENGTH(past_workflow_statuses)can be used to sort and find the specific issues that have been moved the most, helping you investigate the root cause of the churn.
Auditing Your Workflow: You can use this field to find issues that have followed a non-standard or problematic path, which is invaluable for process improvement and retrospectives.
Identify Blockers: Find every issue that has ever been in a "Blocked" state, even if it is currently active, by using a filter like
Past Workflow Statuses contains "Blocked".Detect Rework: Isolate issues that have moved backward in your workflow by creating a filter where
Workflow Status = "To Do" and Past Workflow Statuses contains "In Progress".Check for Skipped Stages: You can audit your process by finding completed issues that missed a critical step. For example, filter where
Workflow Status = "Done" and Past Workflow Statuses does not contain "In QA".
Analyzing Common Bottlenecks: By using the
FLATTENfunction, you can analyze which workflow statuses are the most frequent stops in an issue's journey.A bar chart with the dimension
FLATTEN(past_workflow_statuses)and the metricCOUNT()will show you which intermediate statuses are most commonly passed through. If stages like "Waiting for Dependency" appear frequently at the top of the list, it highlights systemic bottlenecks that are slowing down your entire process.