How to restrict editing permissions without affecting the creation of tasks

Question

Background:
The roles in my current project can be summarized into two types: SPM and SE. Our workflow is roughly as follows:

* S1: After confirming requirements, the SE creates an Epic for a product in their own project (SEs and SPMs belong to different departments, and this JIRA Project is maintained by the SE’s department).
* S2: The SPM analyzes the detailed requirements and creates a development task under this Epic.
* S3: The SPM switches the assignee of this development task to the SE.
* S4: The SE completes and closes the development task.

Actions Taken:
To restrict SPMs from editing tasks after assigning them to SEs (i.e., SPMs can only edit tasks they newly create until reassigning them), I implemented the following:

* O1: Set both the "Assign Issue" and "Edit Issue" permissions to Current Assignee.
* O2: Added an automation rule: Automatically set the assignee to the Creator (the SPM who created the task) when a new issue is created.

This ensures that whether an SPM creates a task from scratch or clones an existing task (where the assignee field would otherwise retain the cloned task’s value, typically an SE), the assignee of the new task is the SPM themselves. The SPM can then edit the task before assigning it to the SE. Once assigned, the SPM can no longer edit the task because they are no longer the assignee.

Problem:
However, when an SPM tries to fill in the Epic Link for a newly created task, the system requires edit permissions for both the task and the Epic. This means:

* The SPM must be the assignee of both the task and the Epic to edit the Epic Link.
* In reality, Epics are usually owned by SEs, not SPMs.
* Manually transferring Epic ownership to SPMs is impractical, especially since multiple SPMs may create tasks under the same Epic.

Question:
Is there a way to resolve this issue? Are there alternative suggestions to achieve the desired outcome?

David Friedrich · Answer

An easy thing would be to create a workflow action (transition to itself), in this transition you have a screen with a custom text field. Let your users enter the issue key in the custom text field. A corresponding automation triggers when this customfield is edited and copies the value as epic link.

In cloud you wouldn't even need an extra customfield nor even edit the workflow. Just set up the automation as action (manual trigger) and check "Prompt for input when this rule is triggered". Store the value as variable and use it in an issue edit to set the epic link.

黄森 · Answer

Hello, thank you for your answer. May I ask what I should do to set up automation/workflow? In my scenario, the same Epic may need to be associated with tasks created by different SPMS; and after SPMS create tasks, there may be more than one option for Epic links

David Friedrich · Answer

Hi @黄森 , welcome to the community!

Are you using Jira Cloud or Data Center?

In both deployment options, it should be possible to set up an automation / workflow action as a work around. However this means, that the automation user will set the epic link and not the SPM user. So you will not be able to see, who actually edited the ticket.

If it is only for setting the Epic Link I would advice to try to solve this on an organizational level, meaning either the SPM tells the SE to set it via comment or you all decide on a less strict permission scheme where both roles can edit all issues.