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Automation: Manual epic closure should lead to closing all children including their sub-tasks

Harald Heinz_1sviaa

Hi,

I want to set up an automation to close down all the epics children and their subtasks. The part with the children works, but the level with the subtasks is still where I struggle.

Tried to add another branch for sub-tasks -> but this will only look for them directly under the epic

Any ideas?

Accepted answers

Alexander Hohmann_ioy75z

You could use cascading rules:

One triggered when an Epic is closed and that closes all task level items.
A second one that is automatically triggered when a task level item is closed that closes all subtasks. You need to enable this rule to be triggered by other rules.

Thuan_ Do Dang

Hi @Harald Heinz ,

You should separate to 2 automation. The first one to close epic children, the second one to close sub-tasks. And don't forget to enable "Check to allow other rule actions to trigger this rule. Only enable this if you need this rule to execute in response to another rule." of the second automation.

Hope this helps!

Chitra Nagdeo

Hey @Harald Heinz ,

Welcome to Atlassian Community Forum, My name is Chitra and I am part of Jira Cloud support team in Atlassian. I understand you want to close/complete child standard workitem and subtask workitem when the Epic is closed.

To achieve this you must create two Automation rule:

To transition standard workitem type to Done status category when the Epic is marked as Done (already working as I understand)
Second rule to mark subtask linked with Standard workitem type to Done when the parent is marked as Done by the first rule. Refer article: Automation for Jira - How to automatically close sub-tasks from a parent issue

On second rule check the option "Check to allow other rule actions to trigger this rule. Only enable this if you need this rule to execute in response to another rule." Screenshot 2025-06-25 at 3.53.52 PM.png

The above steps will help you achieve the requirement, thank you and have a nice day!

Thanks and Regards
Chitra Nagdeo

Bill Sheboy

Hi @Harald Heinz -- Welcome to the Atlassian Community!

I recommend implementing this scenario with one single rule rather than chained rules. That approach will reduce the risks of rule errors, failures, or an Atlassian automation outage preventing the chained rule(s) from running. (My understanding is there is no guarantee after an outage that rules which were supposed to run by-events will actually run later.)

This approach can be done with one rule as long as there are 100 work items, or fewer, involved. To do this with one rule:

trigger: manual
issue fields condition: issue type equals Epic
action: lookup work items / issues, to gather the child issues of the parent Epic
- parent = {{triggerIssue.key}}
branch on JQL: use the lookup results and each work item's subtasks smart value to gather the full list, children and grandchildren (i.e., subtasks)
- key IN ( {{#lookupIssues}}{{key}}{{#if(subtasks.size.gt(0))}},{{subtasks.key.join(",")}}{{/}}{{^last}},{{/}}{{/}} ) AND statusCategory != Done
- action: transition the work item

The part which gathers all of the child and grandchild work items is this:

{{#lookupIssues}}{{key}}{{#if(subtasks.size.gt(0))}},{{subtasks.key.join(",")}}{{/}}{{^last}},{{/}}{{/}}

The way that works is:

iterating over the lookup results
get the work item's key
using a conditional expression, check if there are any subtasks found
and if so, add those keys, joined together with commas
finally, adding a conditional comma between work item keys, except after the last one

Kind regards,
Bill

All comments

Alexander Hohmann_ioy75z

You could use cascading rules:

One triggered when an Epic is closed and that closes all task level items.
A second one that is automatically triggered when a task level item is closed that closes all subtasks. You need to enable this rule to be triggered by other rules.

Thuan_ Do Dang

Hi @Harald Heinz ,

Hope this helps!

Chitra Nagdeo

Hey @Harald Heinz ,

To achieve this you must create two Automation rule:

To transition standard workitem type to Done status category when the Epic is marked as Done (already working as I understand)
Second rule to mark subtask linked with Standard workitem type to Done when the parent is marked as Done by the first rule. Refer article: Automation for Jira - How to automatically close sub-tasks from a parent issue

The above steps will help you achieve the requirement, thank you and have a nice day!

Thanks and Regards
Chitra Nagdeo

Harald Heinz_1sviaa

Thank you all, the mentioned checkbox made the difference as I already created a second automation.

But: can somebody explain, how this checkbox works. I mean, how does the second automations rule dynamics work once this checkbox is used with regards to the first rule if it is not explicitly linked?

Chitra Nagdeo

Hey @Harald Heinz ,

In Jira automation rules, the setting "Check to allow other rule actions to trigger this rule. Only enable this if you need this rule to execute in response to another rule" determines if a rule can be initiated by actions performed within other automation rules. If this option is checked, the rule can be triggered by actions in other rules. If unchecked, the rule will only be triggered by its defined trigger.

Hope this helps!

Regards

Chitra Nagdeo

Bill Sheboy

Hi @Harald Heinz -- Welcome to the Atlassian Community!

This approach can be done with one rule as long as there are 100 work items, or fewer, involved. To do this with one rule:

trigger: manual
issue fields condition: issue type equals Epic
action: lookup work items / issues, to gather the child issues of the parent Epic
- parent = {{triggerIssue.key}}
branch on JQL: use the lookup results and each work item's subtasks smart value to gather the full list, children and grandchildren (i.e., subtasks)
- key IN ( {{#lookupIssues}}{{key}}{{#if(subtasks.size.gt(0))}},{{subtasks.key.join(",")}}{{/}}{{^last}},{{/}}{{/}} ) AND statusCategory != Done
- action: transition the work item

The part which gathers all of the child and grandchild work items is this:

{{#lookupIssues}}{{key}}{{#if(subtasks.size.gt(0))}},{{subtasks.key.join(",")}}{{/}}{{^last}},{{/}}{{/}}

The way that works is:

iterating over the lookup results
get the work item's key
using a conditional expression, check if there are any subtasks found
and if so, add those keys, joined together with commas
finally, adding a conditional comma between work item keys, except after the last one

Kind regards,
Bill

Harald Heinz_1sviaa

@Bill Sheboy wow, this worked instantly. Thank you so much - happy to use an all-in-one automation

Harald Heinz_1sviaa

@Bill Sheboy I have a similar vice-versa use case where I need subtasks to update an epic. Do you know if this can be done in one JQL again by a smart value?:

First Subtask status update should update and epic

Bill Sheboy

Hi @Harald Heinz

It appears others already responded and you accepted their answers to that question.

Kind regards,
Bill

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