Track Sub-Task for External Entity

[Jim Walsh]

Hi,

This is more a workflow process question than a technical one but it is JIRA related. 

I have a number of tasks where one of the sub-tasks is performed by an external company. My problem is that when I put my task into Sprint it takes the sub-task for the external company into my sprint but I don't want that time or sub-task tracked there because it may not be completed within my sprint and the time allocated to it isn't part of my sprint.

I suppose I could create a second task for the external work, leave the external task outside sprint and link the two tasks.  However if I do that I can't create an Epic for the two tasks as there is already an Epic for the overall project and a number of tasks within that Epic have this split between internal and external work.  I know this approach would work but it just feels a little clunky.

I do need to track the external work obviously because I can't close off the project until that work is complete.  I've read lots of debate on other questions about sub-tasks being part of sprints (some of them quite heated!) so I assume others have come across this issue before and have had to solve it.  I'm just wondering what approaches they took to solve an issue like this or is the idea above the only way it could be done.

Thanks, Jim

[Jan · Accepted solution]

Hi Jim,

Sub-tasks are the wrong modelling tool for this scenario. In Jira, sub-tasks always inherit the sprint of their parent issue, so if the parent Task is in a sprint, the external sub-task will automatically be in that sprint as well. There is no clean way to separate them while keeping the sub-task structure.

What worked for me is to not model external work as a sub-task.
Instead:

• Create a separate issue (e.g., Task) for the external company.
• Keep it in the same Epic as the internal Task.
• Link the two issues using a dependency link such as “blocks / is blocked by.”

Best

Jan

[Jim Walsh]

Thanks Jan.  That was what I thought I needed to do but as I'm new to JIRA I just wanted to check if there was a better way to do this that I wasn't aware of.

Appreciate the response.