I would like to know how to use JIRA Misc Workflow Extension (or another plug-in) to automatically & accurately update the parent issue status when the 2+ sub-tasks move from state to state.

Steven Douglass

I have a 3 step workflow: TO DO <-> IN PROGRESS <-> DONE. 

Work is organized by parent issue with 2 or more sub-tasks.

I would like to know how to use JIRA Misc Workflow Extension (or another plug-in) to automatically update the parent issue status when a sub-task moves from state to state. The fact that there is more than one sub-task complicates things though, as I don't want the status of the parent issue to be DONE when there are sub-tasks still in the TO DO or IN PROGRESS states.

For example:

• Should subtaskA be IN PROGRESS and subtaskB be TO DO, then the parent issue status should be IN PROGRESS.
• Should subtaskA be DONE and subtaskB be TO DO, the parent issues should be IN PROGRESS.
• Should subtaskA be DONE and subtaskB be IN PROGRESS, the parent issues should be IN PROGRESS.
• Should subtaskA be DONE and subtaskB be DONE, the parent issues should be DONE.

I've been working with JIRA Misc Workflow Extension for the past 2 days and can adjust the parent issue status to the same sub-task status by using a transition post-function, but I can't figure out how to keep the parent issue status as IN PROGRESS when only one sub-task is moved to DONE and the other remains in either TO DO or IN PROGRESS.

Any assistance would be appreciated.

Edit: I should mention that I tried using a workflow sub-task blocking condition (All sub-tasks must have one of the following statuses to allow parent issue transitions: DONE) on the IN PROGRESS > DONE transition which seems to work as expected when subtaskA goes to DONE and subtaskB remains IN PROGRESS (result: the parent issue remains IN PROGRESS) however when I then transition subtaskB to DONE the parent issue remains IN PROGRESS. My conclusion is that the condition is checked BEFORE subtaskB status is changed to DONE so the condition is FALSE which leaves the parent issue unchanged - when I really wanted it to be DONE.

Edit #2: I am using JIRA Software (in the cloud).

David _old account_

Unfortunately, Atlassian imposes a lot of restrictions on JIRA Misc Workflow Extensions on JIRA Cloud. In particular, conditional execution (through scripts) is not available, because of security considerations. 

However, there might be a solution: you create a new "auto-transition" from your "DONE" state to the same state, you hide it from users using the "Hide transition Condition" (make sure you use the one from JMWE), and you trigger it automatically from your transition from "IN PROGRESS" to "DONE". On that new auto-transition, you put the Transition Parent Issue post-funtion.

This way, when the last sub-task is transitioned to DONE, it will trigger a secondary transition after it reaches the DONE status, and thus the sub-task blocking condition will work.

Let me know if this works.

David