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Jira Automation to Roll Up Custom Field (Number) to Parent Item

Amanda Barber

I'm looking to create an automation that sums a custom field that is listed on subtasks to that custom field on their parent item. Lesson Count is a custom field (number) and the field would be edited for subtasks and rolled up to the Parent work item.

Any ideas what's missing here?

Screenshot 2025-07-08 at 1.17.54 PM.png

Thank you in advance!

Accepted answers

Trudy P Claspill

Hello @Amanda Barber

The structure is correct.

What are the details of your Edit Work Item Fields action?

Bill Sheboy

Hi @Amanda Barber

Without seeing the details of the edit, I hypothesize it looks like this:

{{issue.subtasks.myCustomField.sum}}

That likely does not work because the subtasks smart value only contains some of the fields for each one. If it contained all of them, you could imagine a scenario where the subtasks link to other issues, which then link to others, pulling in more and more data...

The fix is to use a Lookup Work Items action to gather the subtasks and then sum the field from the results.

Kind regards,
Bill

Amanda Barber

Oops, thanks @Bill Sheboy and @Trudy P Claspill - somehow I knew I could count on both of you to chime in quickly!

For the Edit work item fields step, I have setting Lesson Count: {{issue.customfield_10676.plus(issue.subtasks.customfield_10676)}}

All comments

Trudy P Claspill

Hello @Amanda Barber

The structure is correct.

What are the details of your Edit Work Item Fields action?

Trudy P Claspill

And what is the Type of the project (Company Managed or Team Managed)?

Trudy P Claspill

Within the For Parent branch you could add as the first component a Lookup Issues action with JQL to gather the subtasks meeting your criteria

Then in the Edit action set the field in the parent issue using a smart value like this that references the custom field of the subtasks

Bill Sheboy

Hi @Amanda Barber

Without seeing the details of the edit, I hypothesize it looks like this:

{{issue.subtasks.myCustomField.sum}}

The fix is to use a Lookup Work Items action to gather the subtasks and then sum the field from the results.

Kind regards,
Bill

Amanda Barber

Oops, thanks @Bill Sheboy and @Trudy P Claspill - somehow I knew I could count on both of you to chime in quickly!

For the Edit work item fields step, I have setting Lesson Count: {{issue.customfield_10676.plus(issue.subtasks.customfield_10676)}}

Amanda Barber

Team Managed

Bill Sheboy

Your access of the field in the subtasks is missing the sum, so first try setting the field to this

{{issue.subtasks.customfield_10676.sum}}

If that does not help, please try using the lookup instead as Trudy and I suggested:

trigger: field value changed for Lesson Count
condition: issue type equals Subtask
branch: to parent
- action: lookup work items, with JQL of parent = {{issue.key}}
- action: edit work item to set the field value

{{lookupIssues.customfield_10676.sum}}

Amanda Barber

Changing the field to

{{issue.subtasks.customfield_10676.sum}}

worked!

Thank you both!!

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