Do subtasks of an Epic inherit its workflow?

Question

I'm trying to create a new workflow for my Epics. My goal was to create a more simple set of statuses for Epics (Backlog, In Progress, Done) rather than moving them through the various development statuses (QA, UAT, Selected for Dev, etc).  I have a separate workflow created for my stories, tasks, bugs, and subtasks.

When I go to publish my Epic workflow it asks me to convert the statuses of my existing tickets. This worries me because I don't have any Epics in the status of "Code Review", "UAT", "Selected For Development", "Kickback". Is it going to convert the subtasks associated with the Epic?

Also, any other ideas for a simple way to manage Epic status as their linked issues move through different cycles are welcome.

Dave Theodore [Coyote Creek Consulting] · Accepted Answer

You really should be managing your Epics in the Agile Board.  If you do that, you should use the default workflow and not mess with it, or you may introduce problems with the way the Board manages Epics. There shouldn't be a need to move an Epic through a workflow.

Epic is just a normal Issue Type, otherwise. Same with Sub-tasks. They can have their own workflow that is unique.

The wizard may show you Statuses that have no issues. It's one of the charms of that wizard. I hope that helps.

Chris Buzon · Accepted Answer

Dave is correct, subtasks/sub-tasks have their own workflow.

If you change the workflow for subtasks, it will force you to update existing subtasks to use the new flow. If you're just changing the epic flow then your subtasks will not be affected.

I can see that there are only 5 epics, so you're going to map down from all those statuses to the new ones you're trying to implement.