Automation clone an Epic, which has Stories with linked Tasks and Sub-tasks.

Question

I wanted to clone an Epic, which has Stories, Tasks and Sub-tasks. There are Stories which are implemented by some tasks. i am currently able to Clone Stories , tasks and Sub-tasks But i need help to link issue (implements ) Tasks with original stories also.

Clara Belin-Brosseau_Elevatic · Answer

Hi @Sasmita Dash

As an alternative to Jira Automation that can be sometimes quite limited, I can suggest trying our app Elements Copy & Sync. It allows you to clone epic, stories, tasks and subtasks at once, really easily and without having to struggle with technical Automation rules.

Don't hesitate to check the documentation, it’s really quick and easy to set up.

The app is for free during 30 days (and it stays free under 10 users).

Luka Hummel - codefortynine · Answer

Hi @Sasmita Dash and welcome to the community!

If you're looking for an efficient way to clone an Epic along with its Stories, Tasks, Sub-tasks, and maintain issue links between them, our app Deep Clone for Jira is an excellent solution.

Why Use Deep Clone for Jira?

* Epic/Tree Clone: Clone an Epic and all its child issues while preserving the hierarchical structure.
* Maintain Issue Links: Automatically keeps issue links (e.g., "implements," "blocks," or custom links) intact between cloned issues.
* Bulk Cloning: Clone multiple issues at once, saving time for large-scale operations.
* Advanced Field Editing: Modify fields dynamically while cloning using the Field Editor.
* Cloning to Other Projects or Instances: Move entire Epics with dependencies across different Jira projects or even different Jira instances.

Bill Sheboy · Answer

Hi @Sasmita Dash -- Welcome to the Atlassian Community!

Short answer: Scenarios to clone multiple issue type levels (and links) rarely work as expected with automation rules.  When one regularly needs such complicated cloning, investigate marketplace apps to help.

There are many community posts describing partial solutions to the cloning scenario you describe, and most require multiple rules and are prone to error / failures.  The primary reasons are:

* Automation rule branches on more-than-one-thing process in parallel and asynchronously.  And so the processing order and when the branch will complete is unpredictable, making cloning more-than-one level impossible in a single rule.
* Using multiple rules for such cloning scenarios requires using additional custom fields to store information on cloned-from issues and their linked issues.  This is, at best case, a brittle solution, and if there is a single rule error / disruption, manually correcting the cloning is quite involved.

There are open suggestions to make branch processing optionally serial (or at least add a "wait until done" feature).  Until those are built, complicated cloning issues with rules is better done with outside tools.

Kind regards,
Bill