In a Jira workflow, an issue status represents a state in the workflow for an issue. It describes the current status of the issue. If we compare it to a flow chart, the statuses will be the rectangles and, in the diagram, they indicate the current status of the issue along the process. Just as a task can only be in one stage of a business process, an issue can be in only one status at any given time; for example, an issue cannot be both open and closed at the same time.

There is also a term called step, which is the workflow terminology for statuses. Since Jira has simplified its workflow administration, step and status can be used interchangeably. For consistency, we will be using the term status in this book, unless a separation needs to be made in special cases.