Is it possible to remove subtasks for only one specific issue type?

[Tiago Massochin]

Right now my team is using Jira to organize the features and stories in our project, and we are using 4 different types of issues. And when a member is assigned to an issue, he is responsible for creating his subtasks related to the issue in question.

The point is that one of these issues is used as a milestone where we put our results (such as links to the work done), export them to an Excel spreadsheet and send them to the project coordinator for evaluation. The Excel spreadsheet is automated and automatically feeds with the data we export from Jira, but if we create subtasks in this specific issue type, we end up breaking the spreadsheet in Excel, because for some reason it just hates when this issue type has any subtasks.

I already instruct team members not to create subtasks on this issue, but they forget and do it anyway. So, to avoid this being a problem, I'd like to be able to disable at all the option to create subtasks on this specific issue only. However, the only configuration I see in Jira is to disable subtasks in the entire project, which doesn't help since we need subtasks in the other issue types.

So, is there no way to disable the option to create subtasks only in a specific issue type, while leaving it enabled in other ones?

[Trudy Claspill · Accepted solution]

Hello @Tiago Massochin 

That does not appear to be an option currently, but here is a change request you can comment and vote on:

https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/JRACLOUD-7990

You might be able to do it with an app.

There was a blog post from Adaptavist on doing this with their ScriptRunner app, but that is from 2018 and was specific to Jira Server/DC. I don't know if the same could be done with the ScriptRunner app for Jira Cloud.

https://www.adaptavist.com/blog/restricting-issue-types-with-scriptrunner-for-jira

[Mark Segall]

Hi @Tiago Massochin - Sub-Tasks are just there or not there.  However, you could try the below workaround

Fair warning... It's a bit involved, but if you are insistent upon locking down when sub-tasks can be used, this is the only way:

• Create a new project (you can copy the configuration scheme from your existing project)
• Create a new Issue Type Scheme on the new project that only includes the issue type(s) that should allow sub-task and the sub-task issue type
• Move all relevant issues/sub-tasks from your original project to the new project
• Remove the issue types from the original project issue type scheme
• Update any board filters to include your new project

The impact will be that the issue types you've specified along with sub-tasks will be moved off of the main project.  These issues would also have a different project key, but everything would be able to live in harmony on the same project board.