Please help - when I am cloning an epic with tasks, the cloned tasks are not in the correct order.

Question

We use project boards to track our projects and they are set up the same way with epics, tasks, and subtasks. When I create a new company-managed project, I want to recreate the same epics, tasks, and subtasks and the best way I've found to do this is to clone each epic from a template I've created.

However, when I clone the epic, the cloned tasks all appear in random order instead of the way they were created - and the tasks MUST be in the correct order in each epic.

Can someone help me to either fix the problem or find a solution (without me having to create each project from scratch - which is VERY time-consuming)?

Thanks!

Bogna Krystian_Deviniti_ · Answer

Hi @Sherri Queen

If you're open to Marketplace add-ons, Issue Templates for Jira (developed by the company I work for) could help. It allows you to create templates for epics that include pre-configured tasks and subtasks with preserved hierarchy and order. Here's a link to the app's Support Center where you'll find a demo and more information if you're interested :)

Sherri Queen · Answer

Thank you, Bill. I voted for this suggestion. Preserving the order when cloning seems like the natural thing to do. Not sure why it wasn't created that way...

Bill Sheboy · Answer

Hi @Sherri Queen

Adding to Trudy's suggestions:

The cloning-order behavior is a long-standing symptom, and there have been several suggestions to preserve the original "child" issue ordering.  Most of them time-out and get closed after a few years, although here is an open one to vote for:

https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/JRACLOUD-93667

This symptom is one of the reasons there are marketplace apps for cloning scenarios as they use code external to Jira to perform the ordering (when needed).

Kind regards,
Bill