Goal Progress Inheritance from Sub-goals in Atlassian

[Hung Tran]

I’m currently using Goals in Atlassian and noticed inconsistent behavior regarding Goal progress inheritance from Sub-goals.

In some cases:

• Parent Goal progress is automatically inherited/calculated from Sub-goals

But in other cases:

• Parent Goal progress does not inherit any progress from Sub-goals
• Progress needs to be updated manually

I’m trying to understand:

1. What conditions determine whether a Goal inherits progress from Sub-goals?
2. Is there any specific configuration or setting required?
3. How can we configure Goals so that Parent Goals always automatically inherit progress from their Sub-goals?

[Liam Do - DevSamurai · Accepted solution]

Hi @Hung Tran ,

Atlassian Goals has shifted toward an OKR-style model with Success Measures (and linked Metrics). This change affects progress calculation:

• Progress now primarily comes from Success Measures/Metrics on a goal (averaged across them). Sub-goals often no longer automatically contribute to the parent’s progress bar once Success Measures are added.
• Older or simpler goal setups (without Success Measures) may still roll up from sub-goals. This explains the behavior you’re seeing.

You can read more details here: Goal Types and better support for OKRs are coming soon. Feel free to leave a comment on the post to let the team know your thoughts.

Hope it helps 🙌
Liam

[Hung Tran]

Hi Liam, Thanks for the clarification — that helps explain the inconsistent behavior we’ve been seeing.

Just to confirm my understanding:

• If a parent Goal is created without Success Measures, then its progress can still roll up automatically from Sub-goals?
• And in that setup, can the Sub-goals themselves still have Success Measures/Metrics?

I’m asking because I tried creating a Goal with Sub-goals recently, but the parent progress still didn’t roll up as expected, so I’m trying to better understand the exact conditions/configuration required for roll-up to work.

Or please guide me how to create a Goal wihout Success Measures?

[Liam Do - DevSamurai]

Hi @Hung Tran,

From the post I mentioned, here are what I can point out for your questions:

• If a parent Goal has NO Success Measures:
  • For existing Goals before the update, progress can still roll up automatically from Sub-goals 
  • For Goals created after the update, sub-goals will no longer contribute to progress.
• Sub-goals can have their own Success Measures/Metrics? Yes, that’s allowed and works fine. But the Sub-goal's progress will no longer contribute to the parent Goal's progress, even if they had metrics.

You can refer to this:

Progress is now averaged from linked success measures. Sub-goals will no longer contribute to the progress. All goals will have a progress roll up by default.

So if you want your parent Goal's progress to be rolled up automatically, the only option is to add Success measures/Metrics to it.

Best,
Liam