how to sum up story points from sub work item to story to epic

[Fabio Paglianti]

Hi 

I would like to use a set of automation together as I use

• epic
• story
• sub-task

to add story points from sub-task to story and then to the epic (if any)

and

I have reached - following this guide (https://community.atlassian.com/forums/Automation-questions/Jira-Automation-Complete-Video-Guides-on-how-to-Sum-Up-Story/qaq-p/1741948#U3222956) - to have the automation working when the story points are added manually from the sub work items to story or from story to epci

but

the rules does not trigger the update on the epic if I add story points in the sub-task

the rule triggers the update on the epic only if the story is updated manually not by the other automation.

Any idea?

Fabio

[Walter Buggenhout · Accepted solution]

Hi @Fabio Paglianti,

An educated guess based on the information I am reading between the lines of what you describe.

You seem to have created 2 automation rules to perform the story point updates. You need to make sure that the rule that updates the story points on your epic is responding to the update of story points from your other automation rule.

Check the details page of your update story points on Epic from Story rule and make sure this checkbox is checked:

It should be at the bottom of the the page, on the right hand side.

If this is not what is causing the issue with your automation rule, share screenshots of your automation rules so we can get a better idea of what you already have in place and what might be missing.

Hope this helps! 

[Fabio Paglianti]

great answer - you did it!

I forgot that behaviour

thanks

f.

[John Funk]

Hi Fabio,

You should be able to do that with a single rule. Just use a branch for Parent. 

Be sure to add a Condition to make sure the Story Points field of the Parent is not equal to the trigger issue Story Points value before you update the Parent.

[Fabio Paglianti]

d

[Bill Sheboy]

Hi @Fabio Paglianti 

Please consider when you want to update a field for summing scenarios across parent, child, etc. levels.  For example, when you only want to update once-per-day, a single scheduled trigger rule might work.  For all other cases, multiple rules are required to handle the different ways the field values can change.

To learn more, please see this article I wrote on the topic:

https://community.atlassian.com/forums/Automation-articles/Automation-concepts-Sum-or-Synch-Fields-with-Parent-and-Child/ba-p/3162890

And...while Atlassian has recently added some capabilities for formula-driven fields, those work for new custom fields and not for built-in ones such as Story Points or Story Point Estimate (for team-managed projects).

Kind regards,
Bill

[Arkadiusz Wroblewski]

Hello @Fabio Paglianti 

@Walter Buggenhout  is likely right about this. What you’re seeing is standard Jira automation behavior: when one rule updates a Story, it won’t trigger a second rule on the Epic unless you specifically enable "Allow rule trigger" in that second rule’s settings

If you want to keep your current two-rule setup, checking that setting is the first step.

That said, @John Funk suggestion is probably the better way to go long-term. Instead of chaining two rules together, you can consolidate them into a single rule that uses branches to update the parent levels directly. It’s cleaner because it removes the dependency on rules triggering other rules entirely

Essentially, your logic is sound. The second rule just isn't "listening" to the changes made by the first one.