Prevent Parent from being Done if any children are still open

[TCastro]

We use Jira Cloud and have the ability to add a restriction to the "Story" to prevent users from moving to "Done" if subtasks are not "Done".

This solution hides the Workflow status "Done" but does not provide any sort of explanation to why users can not see the status Done, therefore, poor UX.

We must find a way to show the status Done but when users Select it a Validation kicks in:

- If child is not Done, prevent user from transition to Done and advise why

This will educate users and provide a good user experience, especially for users that aren't familiar with Jira.

[Trudy Claspill]

Hello @TCastro 

Welcome to the Atlassian community.

We use Jira Cloud and have the ability to add a restriction to the "Story" to prevent users from moving to "Done" if subtasks are not "Done".

This solution hides the Workflow status "Done" but does not provide any sort of explanation to why users can not see the status Done, therefore, poor UX.

What solution specifically have you implemented that result in the Workflow status being hidden? I suspect that you must have added a Condition to your workflow transition, as that will cause the transition to be hidden if the Condition is not met.

What type of project/space does this concern?

Do you have any third party apps in your environment that extend the customization options for Workflows?

[TCastro]

Hi @Trudy Claspill 

The only solution available in Jira Cloud is Restrict based on the status of subtasks.

When card has subtasks, we have 2 options:

1. Allow users to close the card without closing subtasks, or

2. Impose the restriction (Validation no longer exists) as per the screenshot which leads to a terrible UX

In a large org where you have users with various levels of knowledge of Jira it is very important to cater for a good UX. 

Pros and Cons with this approach.

Pros

Prevents closure upfront

Clean workflow state

No flicker

Cons

No explanation

Users think Jira is broken

Support noise (“why can’t I close this?”)

[Trudy Claspill]

Thank you for that additional information.

If you are limited to only the functionality natively available in Jira, and you want to be able to use a validator in this scenario, then the only option currently available to you is the one I suggested in my answer in this post.

https://community.atlassian.com/forums/Jira-questions/Prevent-Ticket-from-being-Done-if-any-children-are-still-open/qaq-p/3150419

Refer to the latter portion of my answer that starts with "Or you can create a custom field..."

If you are open to considering a third party app there are a few that extend the options available for customizing transitions including validators that can handle this case.

[TCastro]

Hi @Trudy Claspill  thanks for that.

Adding a custom field would achieve the same outcome as the restriction, poor UX without any warning to the user.

I'm exploring the options within ScriptRunner and or Automation to move the card to the previous status and add a comment with @ mention to the user notifying the card can't be closed until the subtasks are closed.

Can't think of other way (without 3rd party apps).

IMHO this is poor design from the @jira team.

[Trudy Claspill]

I realize you are using the new workflow editor, so the terminology is different. I don't have access to my Jira environment to double check the terminology in the new editor, but I will do that tomorrow. I believe it still has the concept of Conditions (aka Restrictions) and Validators. I just don't recall the term the use for Validators.

I am suggesting use of the Validator feature, not the Condition/Restriction feature. The Validator doesn't hide the transition. It is applied after you select the transition, validates the information available in the item and presents an error message to the user if the Validator "fails".

[Trudy Claspill]

Edit your workflow.

Choose the transition.

Click on the + next to Rules

On the left select Validate details.

On the right scroll through the list and select Validate a field

For Validate that field select Matches regular expression

For For this field choose the custom number field that you previously created.

For Expression enter 0.

Save your updated workflow.

Create your automation to update your custom number field from 0 to 1 in a parent issue when a subtask is created. Create an automation to check the status of all subtasks when any one subtask changes status, and update the customer number field in the parent to 1 (or any non-zero number) if any of the subtasks is not done.

When the parent then attempts to move through that transition  and has a non-zero value in your custom number field then a message like this will display

You can't customize the error, but you can give the field a meaningful name like "Count of incomplete subtasks", which would replace "Custom Story Points Number in the above message.