How to Clone a Task and Its Subtasks Daily Using Jira Automation?

Hello @Catarina de Souza Ribas 

Welcome to the Atlassian community.

Can you please show us the details of your Create Variable step?

How is the item to be cloned selected? Are you using a JQL in the Scheduled Trigger? If so, can you share that JQL?

Lastly, can you show us your entire rule, please, just so we can see if there might be something odd in the remainder of the rule that could be affecting this?

Hi Catarina - Welcome to the Atlassian Community!

Looking at your rule, I think the main issue is the context change inside the Sub-tasks branch.

When Jira Automation enters a branch for related work items, {{issue}} starts referring to the item in that branch — in your case, each original sub-task — not the parent/template issue anymore. Atlassian documents this behavior explicitly.

Your overall approach is still valid, though. The important part is to capture the newly cloned parent immediately after cloning it, before entering the sub-task branch.

I would structure the rule like this:

Scheduled trigger
Clone the template parent task
Create variable
Name: cloneparent
Value:
{{createdIssue.key}}

Atlassian documents {{createdIssue}} as the previously created work item in the flow, and {{createdIssues}} is also supported by the Clone work item action.

Then:

Branch → Sub-tasks
Inside that branch, clone the current sub-task
Set the cloned sub-task's Parent field to:
{{cloneparent}}

So the structure should effectively be:

Scheduled
↓
Clone parent template
↓
Create variable
cloneparent = {{createdIssue.key}}
↓
Branch: Sub-tasks of template
↓
Clone sub-task
↓
Parent = {{cloneparent}}

This is also very similar to Atlassian's own documented pattern for scheduled creation of a task and its sub-tasks: they save {{createdIssue.key}} into a variable and then use that variable as the Parent for the sub-tasks.

One thing I would change from your screenshot is to make sure the variable stores the key, not the entire work item object:

{{createdIssue.key}}

rather than:

{{createdIssue}}

I would also add a Log action immediately after creating the variable:

Cloned parent: {{cloneparent}}

If the audit log returns something like ABC-123, then you know the parent clone is being captured correctly before the sub-task branch starts.

I don't think you need a more complicated solution yet. Your rule structure is very close — the key is preserving the cloned parent's key before Jira changes context to each original sub-task.

Hope this helps!

I’ve run into similar issues with Jira automation when cloning parent issues and their subtasks. One thing I’d check first is the order of the automation actions.

If the parent issue is cloned first, make sure the cloned issue is stored in a variable or referenced from the “created issue” context before attempting to clone the subtasks. The subtask’s Parent field should point to the newly created issue, not the original template issue.

I’d also check whether the automation rule is still able to access the cloned issue’s key/ID after the recent Jira changes. Testing the parent clone action separately first can help identify whether the problem is with the variable or with the subtask cloning step itself.