How to create an Automation to copy Labels from Epics to Story/Task (Upon creation)?

[Mizael Ponce]

Our team has adopted a new organizational method, via specified labels on all of our Issue Types. Unfortunately, I have run into a problem where I am manually applying all of the labels to the Stories/Tasks within my Epic. 

My initial goal was to proactively Label the Epic with the Team and Project Code, and have any issues created under the Epic automatically take on the labels of the Epic. 

I have been able to create an automation to make sub-tasks copy the labels of the Parent Issue, however, when I apply the same logic and use the Action: "copy from epic", the audit log informs me that it could not find the Epic to pull the information from.

Is there something I should be changing below to get this automation to work? 

[Bill Sheboy · Accepted solution]

Hi @Mizael Ponce -- Welcome to the Atlassian Community!

Your want your rule to trigger when a child issue (e.g. story) is created...and it already points to an epic.  Is that correct?  If so, you want watch for timing problems with the Issue Created trigger and copy directly from the Epic.

• trigger: issue created
• action: re-fetch
• condition: issue type is Story or Task
• action: edit issue, setting the labels from the Epic (this is an option from the field edit via the ... at the right side of the field)

What do you want to happen if the Epic Link for an issue changes later?

Kind regards,
Bill

[Mizael Ponce]

Hi @Bill Sheboy ,

Thank you for that suggestion! The automation is working smoothly now. 

Regarding your last question, I want the Issue types to take on the labels for whatever Epic they are currently linked to. 

Is there a rule I can implement for this? 

[Bill Sheboy]

For that use case, you will want a second rule triggered on issue update to copy from the epic.

Unfortunately you cannot use the Issue Field Changed trigger with "Epic Link" as that is not supported yet.  Instead you use the generic Issue Updated and add a condition, such as...

• trigger: issue updated
• condition: issue type is Story or Task
• advanced compare condition: using {{changelog}} to compare for a change in Epic Link
  • first value: {{#changelog.Epic link}}{{fromString}}{{/}}
  • condition: does not equal
  • second value: {{#changelog.Epic link}}{{fromString}}{{/}}
• and here is the tricky part... using conditions, what do you want to do if the Epic Link is cleared: clear the child's labels or leave them alone?  Add an If/Else condition here to handle what you decide to do

[Mizael Ponce]

@Bill Sheboy Thank you for this information! You just saved me a couple hours of trial and error. 

[Claudio Gonzalez]

Hi @Mizael Ponce ,

Try how I put in the attached file.

[Mizael Ponce]

Hi @Claudio Gonzalez ,

Thank you for your Input! I edited the Rules to reflect your image (assuming T&A and Linux/Unix are your issue types), however I am still not seeing the label field populate on the Stories/Tasks that I am creating under the Epic. 

I am attaching an image of the Rule Details and Audit Log the for your review. 

Is there perhaps a field I need to include on my Epics in order for the Automation to recognize the Issue type and information I am requesting?