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Is there a quick way to link parent issue and children issues status?

Taylor Douthitt

Hi - I'm looking for a quick way to have parent issue statuses dependent on their children status.

Example: Epic 1 has 3 children tasks (Task 1, Task 2, Task 3).

Task 1 - To Do

Task 2 - In Progress

Task 3 - To Do

Since Task 2 is In Progress, the Epic will be In Progress. When all 3 tasks are done, the Epic will update to Done. If all 3 tasks are in the To Do status, the Epic should be in the To Do status.

I would like for all parent-children relationships to have this functionality (Initiative-Epic, Epic-Task, Epic-Story, Task-Subtask, Story-Subtask). Is there a quick way to do this or do I need to create a bunch of automation? I'm new to Jira Project so still learning the ropes. Thanks!

Accepted answers

All comments

Trudy P Claspill

Hello @Taylor Douthitt

Are you trying to do this for multiple projects?

Are all the issues within a given "family" in just a single project, or do you have parent/child relationships across projects?

If you are trying to do this for multiple projects or issues that span projects, do you use Company Managed projects or Team Managed projects or both?

Do all the issues involved in the "family" use the same workflow? Are you using just To Do, In Progress, and Done?

Do you have any restrictions on the workflows that would prevent issues from moving freely between statuses?

You will likely need multiple Automation Rules, but just how many depends on the answers to the questions above.

Taylor Douthitt

Are all the issues within a given "family" in just a single project, or do you have parent/child relationships across projects?
- Just one project

do you use Company Managed projects or Team Managed projects or both?
- Team Managed

Are you using just To Do, In Progress, and Done?
- Correct

Do you have any restrictions on the workflows that would prevent issues from moving freely between statuses?

- Not that I'm aware of, they should be able to move freely. There have been no additional restrictions I've put in place

Trudy P Claspill

You provided this description of your hierarchy:

(Initiative-Epic, Epic-Task, Epic-Story, Task-Subtask, Story-Subtask)

The issue hierarchy in a Team Managed project is

Epic
|-- standard level issues (i.e. Task, Story)
    |-- subtask

Example from Project Settings / Issue Types:

Screenshot 2024-06-25 at 3.20.24 PM.png

Can you show the comparable image from your project, please? Team Managed projects don't support adding another level above Epic. I'm trying to understand how you have added Initiative to the hierarchy.

Taylor Douthitt

I'm using Initiative as a parent to Epics in my project

Kimball.Robinson

Here is how I created an automation rule to set the parent status as a label on all child issues:
https://community.atlassian.com/t5/Jira-questions/Re-How-to-create-an-Automation-to-copy-Labels-from-Epics/qaq-p/2769479/comment-id/1038297#M1038297

Trudy P Claspill

@Kimball.Robinson

The OP is not asking about copying Labels. They are asking about changing the status of a parent based on status changes occurring on the child issues.

Your solution does not apply to the question.

Additionally your solution is for Jira Cloud and this question concerns Jira Data Center.