How to elevate a task sub-task hierarchy to an Epic <->Story, keeping the parent-child repationship?

Glenn Andreas

I have changed the "Issue Type" set-up in a project from a task<->sub-task relationship to an Epic<->Story<->Task, Sub-Task set-up. 

When elevating the old Task(s) to an Epic, I want to bulk-change the old Sub-Tasks from Sub-taks to Story`s whilst keeping them as children to the "new EPIC". When doing this, the relationsip is broken and they (i.e. new Story`s) end up as "free" Story`s in the backlog. I manually have to hook them up to the Epic again. Tideous. 

 

Is there are way to bulk-change the Sub-tasks to Story`s whilst maintaining their child relationship to the EPIC?  I.e. where the Epic was created in Step 1 through changing its Issue type, and then bulk-changing the sub-tasks to Story`s? This didnt work elegantly. Is there another way?

 

I hope the question was understandable:)

Mayura Gautham

Hey @Glenn Andreas 

Transitioning from a task-subtask setup to an epic-story-task-subtask hierarchy in Jira can be complex, especially when trying to maintain relationships during bulk updates where the subtask is not directly linked to the epic. 

Here are a few steps you can consider to streamline this process and maintain the relationship: 

Note: There is no option to directly link the subtask issue to an epic, this is not a one stop solution.

1. Use Bulk Edit Functionality: To begin, perform the bulk change to convert sub-tasks to stories without worrying about the epic link. After the conversion, you'll need to re-establish the epic links.

2. Re-establish Epic Links:

   • Manual Method: After converting sub-tasks to stories, use the bulk edit functionality again to add the epic link to each new story. This requires you to know which epic each story belongs to.

   • Automation: You can create an automation rule that triggers when a sub-task is converted to a story, automatically linking it to the parent epic based on a field or condition. But if each issue needs to be assigned to a different epic, then you might have to include some conditions and branches to check the epic linked to the parent and then to copy it to the issue
     
     Example rule:
     

3. Use a Script or Plugin:

   • If you have access to ScriptRunner, you can write a script that reassigns the epic link automatically when converting sub-tasks to stories. This requires some scripting knowledge but can save significant time if you have many items to process.

I hope this helps.