Automation: Don't allow an epic to transition to done if children are not done

[Scott Hassell]

Issue:   Epics are being moved to done while children are still open.  Would like an automation to prevent epics from moving to done state until all children have been completed.

[Shalini Pradhan]

Hello @Scott Hassell ,

Good day! Welcome to Atlassian Community :)

Automation cant prevent a transition but it can automatically revert the epic back if someone moves it to Done when all child workitems are not done.

Trigger: Workitem transitioned

• Status changed to: Done

• For workitem types: Epic

Condition: Related issues condition

• Related issues: Child issues 

• Condition:Some match specified JQL -> Add JQL:  Statuscategory = Done

Action: Transition issue

• Transition the epic back to its previous status, example select In progress

[Trudy Claspill]

Hello @Scott Hassell 

An Automation flow is triggered when an event completes; i.e. the transition to done has already completed. They can't be used to block the transition directly.

Some alternatives:

1. An Automation flow triggered when the Epic transitions to done, which checks if there are any not done children. The flow can either automatically re-open the epic or send an email to a responsible party directing them to review and address the non-compliance.

2. A custom field in the Epic that will keep track of how many child items are not done. This custom field would need to be set by an Automation flow. The Automation flow could be scheduled to review Epics periodically to see if they have open children and update the custom field accordingly. Or an Automation flow could be triggered based on status changes to items that are children of Epics, review all the child items of the Epic, and update the custom field in the Epic. This alternative is more complex because you would also need to consider when child items are added to the Epic or removed from the Epic.

3. Use of a third party app to create a custom Rule to implement in the workflow used by the Epic. 

Let us know if you have additional questions.

[Mikael Sandberg]

Automations are running after an action is done, it cannot prevent something to happen like a transition. You could do this as part of your workflow to prevent the transition to be shown until all linked work items are done.

[Mikael Sandberg]

It can be done by either have a field on the epic that sets the number of open child work items, or you would need an app that restrict it based in parent - child link.