JQL for Automation to move tickets based on sub-task's statuses

Daniel Ronnstam

Hi. For our pipeline, we need to know how to set automation for a custom issue type, so that the automation;

1) Check the statuses of all the sub-tasks belonging to the parent issue.

2) Transition the parent issue to the same status as the sub-task that has the status FURTHEST TO THE LEFT (earliest) in the Workflow (or upwards in the workflow map).

As we need to have the parent issue in a status that reflects how far the least worked-on sub-task has come in the pipeline.

Does anyone know how to do this?

Trudy P Claspill

Hello @Daniel Ronnstam 

What have you got so far for your automation for this?

Here is the start of a rule for one way you could accomplish this. I'm sure there are other ways, and I may think of a more elegant one later.

 

The inelegant part of this is that you have to set of multiple IF/Conditions within the branch based on the available statuses, because you can't embed an IF/ELSE structure under a branch.. The first one checks if there are any sub-tasks in the left-most status of your workflow. If so, then set the parent status accordingly.

For the next set of conditions you have to check if there are any sub-tasks in the next status in the workflow AND confirm there are no sub-task in earlier statuses. You have to do this because without the ELSE structure the second set of conditions will be check even if the first set of conditions was matched.

Say you have a parent issue that has Sub-tasks that are in To Do and some Sub-tasks that are in In Progress. The first IF would find there are Sub-tasks in To Do and set the parent to To Do. The second set of conditions would initially find Sub-tasks in In Progress. If you didn't also check that there were no Sub-tasks in To Do, then the parent would be transitioned again to In Progress because some Sub-tasks are In Progress.

 

Brainstorming...

Another way to do this that would allow you to have an If/Else block would be to have one rule that is triggered by the Sub-task transitioning. In that rule only set a flag on the parent to note that a sub-task was transitioned.

Then have a second rule that looks for a change in that Flag for the parent issue. Remove the flag, then use If/Else blocks to check for the statuses of Sub-tasks and set the parent issue status accordingly.

You would have to make sure that this rule had in the Details the box checked to "allow other rule actions to trigger this rule"