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Issue with deletion of subtasks in a cloned story. Original story gets deleted as well

Selvaggia Cerquetti

We have a "template story" with 60 subtasks and we use it as a template.

Every time, we clone the "template story" and, within the cloned story, we delete the subtasks that we do not need for that particular case. But when we do this, the original template is deleted as well. It happened twice already today.

How can we make sure that we can work on the clones without affecting the original story?

Accepted answers

Trudy P Claspill

Hello @Selvaggia Cerquetti

Welcome to the Atlassian community.

Exactly what steps are you taking to Clone the template issue?

After the Clone process completes do the newly created items have links to the template items?

Exactly what steps are you taking to delete sub-tasks in the newly created Story?

With those questions I'm trying to discern if you are using native Jira features or features provided by a third party app, so that I can attempt the same process to see if I get the same result.

Do you have any Automation Rules that use the Delete Work Item action?

While the problem is being debugged I recommend that you have your users simply close (set to a Done status) the subtasks rather than deleting them.

Varsha Joshi

Hi @Selvaggia Cerquetti

I have something similar as well, but we do not delete tasks - Just close them out with a resolution of not needed or not applicable.

All comments

Trudy P Claspill

Hello @Selvaggia Cerquetti

Welcome to the Atlassian community.

Exactly what steps are you taking to Clone the template issue?

After the Clone process completes do the newly created items have links to the template items?

Exactly what steps are you taking to delete sub-tasks in the newly created Story?

With those questions I'm trying to discern if you are using native Jira features or features provided by a third party app, so that I can attempt the same process to see if I get the same result.

Do you have any Automation Rules that use the Delete Work Item action?

While the problem is being debugged I recommend that you have your users simply close (set to a Done status) the subtasks rather than deleting them.

Selvaggia Cerquetti

Hi Trudy,

see below answers to your questions.

Exactly what steps are you taking to Clone the template issue?

Answer:

- I open the template by clicking on the key

- I go to the three dots button (Actions)

- I click clone

- I choose the name of the clone and select to include attachments, child work items, and links

- I wait for it to finish until the confirmation message appears.

After the Clone process completes do the newly created items have links to the template items?

Answer: yes, the cloned story has a link to the original one under the section "Connected work items". Same for the subtasks.

I think this is done automatically as I don't actually want the stories to be linked. Is this the root cause of the issue? Is there a way I can change this?

Exactly what steps are you taking to delete sub-tasks in the newly created Story?

Answer:

- I select the unnecessary subtasks in the cloned story from the list view

- I click "Delete" in the grey bottom bar that appears when you select something in the list view

- I confirm the deletion action in the deletion confirmation popup

- Wait for the process to finish

Do you have any Automation Rules that use the Delete Work Item action?

Answer: No, we do not use any automation rule

Trudy P Claspill

Thank you for that additional information.

So far I have not been able to replicate your issue.

This is the Clone function I use.

Screenshot 2025-09-30 at 9.06.29 AM.png

Here we can see one of the subtasks created, and that it is linked to the original subtask.

Screenshot 2025-09-30 at 9.09.25 AM.png

Here we can see in the List view that I am showing both the cloned item and its subtasks and the item and subtasks created by the clone action. I have selected one of the subtasks created by the clone action, and am confirming that I want to delete it.

Screenshot 2025-09-30 at 9.09.53 AM.png

After confirming the deletion I have refreshed the List view. The specified subtask has been deleted and the original subtasks are still present.

Screenshot 2025-09-30 at 9.10.27 AM.png

This suggest to me that there may be something else happening in your instance, like an automation rule of which you are unaware, or a Listener, or some other feature responding to the deletion of the subtask created by the clone action.

Do you have Jira Administrator access to this instance? If not, work with your Jira Administrator to review:

1. Automation Rules - at the System level where you can see all automation rules, filter the rules for ones that include the Delete work item action. Examine the scope and history of those rules to see if they could be the cause for the deletion of the template items. Also look for rules that use actions to run scripts or send web requests, as those would be alternate methods to execute a Delete action.

2. Webhooks - at the System level check for Webhooks that react to Issue Deleted or Link Deleted events.

3. Check for third party apps that might react to issue deletion, like ScriptRunner Listeners.

If none of the above help you find the root cause of the deletion then it would probably be worthwhile to open a support case directly with Atlassian for more help.

Varsha Joshi

Hi @Selvaggia Cerquetti

I have something similar as well, but we do not delete tasks - Just close them out with a resolution of not needed or not applicable.

Selvaggia Cerquetti

Thanks for the help. I will check with admin and eventually use "Archive" in the meantime.

Clara Belin-Brosseau_Elevatic

Hi @Selvaggia Cerquetti

I can suggest another way to easily clone your template without the unnecessary subtasks.

You can have a look at our app Elements Copy & Sync: it allows you to clone Jira issues with any field you'd like (attachments, child work items, links in your case). You'll have the option to clone the subtasks as well, or not so it should save you some deletion time.

Don't hesitate to give it a try for free on your instance, it should solve your use case in a more straightforward way compared to the native one.

Marlene Kegel - codefortynine

Welcome to the community, @Selvaggia Cerquetti,

I am Marlene, product manager of Deep Clone for Jira.

If Deep Clone is installed on your instance, you could also try cloning with our app. In the Deep Clone dialog you can decide which Subtasks you want to clone using JQL, as you can see in the screenshot.

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