How to move a parent issue into In Progress using automations

[Jamie Kent]

I'm trying to set up an automation that moves a parent epic into In Progress once the first child issue/feature gets moved into In Progress.

The confusing thing is we use the Epic issue type for both Features and Epics. We have them linked in Jira so that Epics are parents of Features, and we delineate the two by using "[FEATURE]" in the summary when it's a feature, and using using "[EPIC]" in the summary when it's an epic. 

This is the automation I have currently:

• When: Issue transitioned to In Progress
• If: Issue Type equals Epic
• And: Summary contains [FEATURE]
• For Parent
  • Then: Transition the issue to In Progress

This current automation isn't working. Where did I go wrong?

[Trudy P Claspill]

Hello @Jamie Kent 

Welcome to the Atlassian community.

Are you working with Jira Cloud or Jira Data Center.

"For Parent" will work only if the issues are truly linked as parent and child adhering to the issue type hierarchy. Per issue type hierarchy and issue 's parent must be of an issue type in the hierarchy level directly above the current issue's type. 

With the native issue type being 

Level 1: Epics
|-- Level 0: standard issue types; I.e. Story, Task, Bug, etc.
    |-- Level -1: sub-task issue types

If your [FEATURE] and [EPIC] items are both the Epic issue type then they are at the same level and one can't be the Parent of the other.

I am assuming that you must be using generic issue linking to artificially create a pseudo parent/child relationship.

@Lalithesh Channu 's answer under the "If linked work item" heading is close to the solution.

The part it is missing is that you said you want the Epic to transition when the first Feature is transitioned to In Progress. The rule provided will try to transition the "parent" Epic to In Progress for every "child" Feature that transitions to In Progress. 

How important to you is it for the Epic to transition only when it is the first Feature to transition to In Progress?

Other things to consider:

- What if the first Feature to transition to In Progress is removed from the Epic before another is transitioned?

- What if no Features "under" the Epic are transitioned to In Progress but another Feature that is already In Progress is moved under the Epic?

- What if the only In Progress "child" Feature is reverted to an earlier status? Should the "parent" Epic's status change?

[Lalithesh Channu]

Hi @Jamie Kent 

Hope you're doing well!

Since both of them are Epic issue types, could you confirm whether they're linked as parent and child, or simply as linked work items?

If Parent and child

1. When: Issue transitioned to In Progress
2. If: Issue Type equals Epic
3. And: Summary contains [FEATURE]
4. For Parent
   1. If summary contains [Epic]
   2. Then: Transition the issue to In Progress

If linked work item

1. When: Issue transitioned to In Progress
2. If: Issue Type equals Epic
3. And: Summary contains [FEATURE]
4. For linked work items
   1. If summary contains [Epic]
   2. Then: Transition the issue to In Progress

Note: A transition must be available between the current status and 'In progress'

Thank you!

[Thanasis Nikolaou]

Hi Jamie 

• When: Issue transitioned to In Progress
• If: Issue Type equals Epic  (This is where your problem is - You need to select the issue type under the epic, not the epic, i.e., Task/Story/Bug etc)
• And: Summary contains [FEATURE]
• For Parent
  • Then: Transition the issue to In Progress

You are so close :) 

[Thanasis Nikolaou]

@Jamie Kent (tagging you so you don't miss the reply) :)