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Which automation rule should I use, so the status of user stories moves along with their sub tasks?

Billy Macrae

Hi there community, your help would be very much appreciated with this.

I would like the status of my User Stories to reflect the movement of the sub tasks within them. However I have only been able to find a solution that allows me to do this if all of the sub tasks align together in the same status. This rarely happens - generally one moves faster than another, so I want the User Story status to track the subtask that has moved *the least far*. This is the most helpful for our PM's.

So, for example, say I have five statuses: Not started, In progress, QA ready, In QA, Complete.

As I move my sub tasks through these statuses, I would like the User story status to track whatever the "slowest" sub task is. If a US has 5 subtasks and four of them have moved through "in progress", "QA Ready", to "In QA", but one subtask lags behind and is only "In progress", then this is what I would like my user story to reflect: "In progress" - irrespective of where the "fastest" sub tasks have got to.

Is there some way to do this, Jira amigos?

Thank you so very much.

Billy M

Accepted answers

Walter Buggenhout

Hi @Billy Macrae,

Don't make things too complex, I would say. Basically, for those status changes of sub-tasks that would cause your story to progress as well, it is enough that the first transitioning sub-task also transitions the parent issue.

That just means implementing a few conditions, so you would end up with something like this:

Screenshot 2022-10-28 at 16.23.07.png

...

Hope this puts you on the right track!

All comments

Mikael Sandberg

The answer to this question is similar to your other one here. If you go to the Automation library you will find this rule, all you have to do is tweak it to fit your use case.

Screenshot 2022-10-28 at 7.14.36 AM.png

This rule would only move the parent issue if all subtasks are in the done status. I one subtask is not in that status, the automation will not do anything.

Walter Buggenhout

Hi @Billy Macrae,

That just means implementing a few conditions, so you would end up with something like this:

Screenshot 2022-10-28 at 16.23.07.png

...

Hope this puts you on the right track!

Billy Macrae

Hi Walter, thanks very much for your response, I really appreciate it.

With the rule you have written above, would this not mean that if a US has two sub tasks, and one transitions all the way to "complete", the US would show as complete even if one of the sub tasks within it is still in progress?

Thanks again.

Billy

Billy Macrae

Hi Mikael, thanks for this.

Does this not mean though that unless all the sub tasks are in the same status, the user story will not update?

So say a User story has 2 sub tasks. One sub task moves all the way along to "complete" first, and then the second one moves to "In progress".

Because the two sub tasks have not sat at the same status at any time, the User story would never get updated until both of the sub tasks eventually sit under the "Complete" status - or am I wrong?

Thanks again

Billy

Walter Buggenhout

Hi @Billy Macrae,

Yes, if you implement that step as well. That would be the exception I would foresee. For that part, a separate rule as the one @Mikael Sandberg would be the better option.

It is all a matter of making sure what you would like to do functionally. If 1 sub-task changes to status in progress, for me that means the story is in progress too. If one sub-task is not complete, then obviously the story as a whole is not complete either. About the QA part, to be fairly honest, you could have an argument or two 😅

But I do believe you can cherrypick from the techniques you may use to implement the different scenarios.

Billy Macrae

Thanks Walter, much appreciated.

Mikael Sandberg

You are correct, that is how the template rule is configured. But you can always change that so it works based on your requirements.

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