As a user, I should be able to merge Test Statuses and Test Step Statuses to consolidate duplicate or redundant statuses and maintain a consistent status structure across Tests and Test Steps

Description

Users should be able to merge Test Statuses and Test Step Statuses to consolidate duplicate, obsolete, or redundant statuses into a single status while preserving existing references and data integrity.

User friction

Organizations that have accumulated duplicate or overlapping statuses must manually update Tests and Test Steps to standardize status usage. This process is time-consuming.

Steps to reproduce (right now) / Actual Result:

• Create multiple Test Statuses or Test Step Statuses that represent the same or similar outcome
• Attempt to consolidate the statuses into a single status
• There is no option to merge Test Statuses or Test Step Statuses
• When deleting an existing customized Test Status or Test Step Status, users can migrate associated tests or test steps to another existing status
• However, this process only reassigns existing records and removes the deleted status; it does not provide a true merge capability that consolidates status definitions while preserving configuration and relationships.

Actual Result: Users cannot merge duplicate or redundant Test Statuses or Test Step Statuses and must rely on manual migration and cleanup.

IMPACT

What would improve if solved:

• Simplifies administration of Test Status and Test Step Status configurations.
• Reduces duplicate and redundant statuses.
• Improves consistency across projects and teams.
• Produces cleaner reporting and more reliable metrics.
• Decreases the time required for status maintenance and standardization.

Impact on stakeholders:

• Possibility to manage status configurations more efficiently.
• A bigger benefit from more consistent reporting and analytics.
• Teams can work with a streamlined and standardized set of statuses.

Current workaround:

Delete the redundant status and use the migration option to move associated Tests or Test Steps to an existing status. Repeat this process for each duplicate status that needs to be consolidated

CONTEXT & EXAMPLES:

Concrete example:

Over time, projects may accumulate multiple statuses with similar meanings due to team-specific configurations, imports, migrations, or changing process requirements. Without a merge capability, administrators must manually identify and consolidate these statuses one at a time.

If a user wants to consolidate 2 or 3 Statuses. Currently, they must delete the customized ones individually and migrate their associated tests to a corresponding Status rather than perform a single merge operation.

Workaround risk:

• Manual cleanup is time-consuming and error-prone.
• Duplicate statuses may remain in the system due to incomplete consolidation.
• Reporting can become inconsistent when similar statuses continue to coexist.
• Large-scale status cleanup efforts increase administrative overhead and the likelihood of configuration mistakes.