Configure Plane Work Item States and State Groups
Plane state groups determine what counts as started, completed or cancelled. Add project states in Settings > States, placing each state in the group with the correct meaning.
Project Admin access is required. In Enterprise Grid with workspace governance enabled, Workspace Admins manage the shared state catalog instead of individual project settings.
Example: add QA testing under Started, because work awaiting verification should not count as completed even when its implementation has finished.
Step-by-step guide
Open the correct state catalog
Open the project menu > Settings > States. If governance removes this tab, have a workspace administrator open Workspace Settings > States instead of creating an unrelated project workaround.
Add the state under its meaning
Use + on the Started group for QA testing. Enter a unique name, color and a description explaining the entry condition, then create the state.
Set order and default deliberately
Drag the state into its correct position within Started. Keep the normal new-work state as default; under governance the default comes from the workflow’s starting state instead.
Verify one work item and reports
Move a sample work item into QA testing. Confirm it still counts as started rather than done before using the state across the project.
Common mistakes
Regrouping to tidy names
Moving a state to Completed changes how all its work items count in analytics. The group is behavior, not a cosmetic heading.
Sources and verification
Based on product documentation checked on 2026-11-04. This is a documentation-based guide, not a hands-on benchmark. Features and availability can change.