How to automatically link issues within an epic based on certain criteria

[Anna George]

I'm pretty new to Jira automation, so hopefully this is easy. I would like to create an automation that would link stories and tasks together based on certain criteria, within an epic.

For example, in Epic 1, let's say Stories are created, "iOS Story 1", "iOS Story 2", and "iOS Story 3". I then create a task called "QA: iOS". I would like each of the iOS stories be linked to the QA iOS task (something like with the relationship of, "must be completed before", i.e. the stories must be completed before the QA task can begin).

Ideally, I'd like this to work both ways: if the above is all complete, and then someone adds an "iOS Story 4", the automation would run and link itself to the "QA: iOS" task.

I would also like this same automation to work for other epics going forward, so I can't link to any specific epic.

What I've tried so far:

• Branch > "For Stories (or other issues in epic)" - this seems to be what I want, but I can't get this to work at all.
  • 
  • When I use the above, then create a task called "QA: iOS", nothing happens - it does not link to the other stories in the epic with "iOS" in the summary.
• Simply using the "Then: Link issue to" is much more straightforward; however, I don't know which issue to link it to. I'm not sure "Trigger issue" would make sense (wouldn't that link to itself?); I can enter in a specific issue key and that works, but I can't use that as I want this rule to apply to all epics going forward (but only run within one epic at a time). Is there a way to use JQL or other smart search to say, "find any issues in the same epic as the trigger issue, with 'iOS' in the summary"?

I would like it to look like this in the end, when creating either the "QA" task or any of the "iOS" stories:

I will be doing the same for other platforms, so it will always be "QA" in the task and then either "iOS," "Android", or "Web" to find the corresponding stories.

[Anna George · Accepted solution]

This is how I figured it out - basically Branch rule / related issues > JQL > "Epic link" = {{issue.epic.key}}. This searches for other issues within the same epic (then putting whatever conditions you want after that).

[Fernando Eugênio da Silva]

@Anna George 

Welcome!

I believe that in this case the problem is in the type of branch used. In an easier way, I got the result.

I made it work using JQL. I created an Epic named Linux and made it work like this:

You need to put Epic's summary condition in the JQL so that it reads that as the validator for the linked issue

And this was the result obtained in the issue (Story):

An interesting detail here is that the field "Epic link" usually filled when the issue is linked natively in Jira is not filled. So I would recommend you to think if it's not worth the use of linking these issues to your epic using the "Edit issue" action for the "Epic link" field. Because if you have epics with similar names, you may face problems with this JQL finding epics with the name "Linux" in your summary

View an issue using the epic link:

And this is the result in Epic with the separations of the issues in blue linked by automation using the "linked issue" and the issues in red using the native hierarchy of the epic by the "Epic link":

Maybe this will help. Feel free for more comments

[Anna George]

Thanks for your reply. I'm not sure this will work for me since I want one rule to work for many epics. Is there a JQL query that checks through other issues in the same epic as the target issue? Not necessarily named "Linux" or anything else, but just comparing two issues and seeing if they are in the same epic

[Pramodh M]

Hi @Anna George 

Welcome to the Community!!

I have changed the automation to automatically create the task issue when story is created which checks for Epic to be present, here's the automation rule

Let me know if this works for you, task is also linked to story in the automation

Thanks,
Pramodh

[Joaquin Darquier]

I am looking to create 1 epic then 3 issues that I want to be children of this epic just created. 

I tried the above and it links the issues to the epic but it does not create the parent-child relationship I am looking for. 

Have you got that working? I see a lot of similar answers but I couldn't get it to work.