it's possible to delete a Epic with Tasks and Sub-Tasks automatically?

[Christian Mahlknecht]

Hi All,

Is it possible to make a configuration that when I delete an epic, the tasks and sub-tasks are also deleted automatically? if not, anyone knows a workaround?

thanks

[Jack Brickey · Accepted solution]

Hi Christian, deleting issues is almost always a bad idea since once gone it is gone. If you subscribe to this philosophy then adding automation Takes the bad idea to a whole new level....giving a robot a gun. 😉

all that warning aside, given you are on Cloud you do have Project Automation. I would suggest you start there and see if your requirements can be achieved.

[John Funk · Accepted solution]

Hi Christian - Just to echo Jack's comments - I really would not delete issues. The only time we do it is for purely test purposes to try out something like a new workflow. And we only delete it to not interfere with metrics. Even then, only Jira System Administrators can delete something. 

We would CERTAINLY never do it as a part of automation.

Just curious - why would you want to delete them as a matter of process?

[Christian Mahlknecht]

Hi @John Funk

Right, as a process.
We are an e-sports company and we are constantly organizing new tournaments for large companies. Every new tournament should be represented as a project in Jira, but since all projects are not the same and certain projects have different phases (Epics) e.g. planning, online, offline... we have created a "template" with all Epics, Tasks, Sub-Tasks and exported it as CSV and would like to import it when creating a project. However, not all epics (phases) are always needed, so we thought it would be easier than modifying the import if you could just delete an epic and also the tasks and sub-tasks it doesn't need.

cheers

[John Funk]

I understand now. You can certainly do what you are looking to do using Automation For Jira. And it is now free as a part of Jira Cloud.

[Christian Mahlknecht]

thank you!

[John Funk]

Glad we could help. 

[Christian Mahlknecht]

hi @John Funk it's me again.

I've looked at the Automation Rules and honestly I don't understand it or I'm a little afraid to delete important things :) Can you please explain me how to create an automation rule to delete 1 epic including all tasks and sub taks.

[John Funk]

Can you include a screenshot of what you have so far?

[Christian Mahlknecht]

literary nothing :( i dont get it. please Help :)

[Christian Mahlknecht]

[John Funk]

That looks good - I would create a test Epic and some stories under it and test it out  :-)

[Christian Mahlknecht]

Hi @John Funk 
I think the configuration of the above screenshot is wrong, no success.
It only removes the epic and not the associated issues like Tasks, Sub-Tasks
We have various issues types and sub-tasks in the epic and they need to be cancelled if i delete the Epic
Please help.

[John Funk]

Can you provide a screenshot of the Audit log for when it runs?

[Christian Mahlknecht]

Details of the action:
issue condition
The following procedures have been passed:
TEST-3
Branch Rule / Related Transactions
Error in the search for related operations. This is most likely because the following operations do not have a related operation of the specified type. Try narrowing your search to include only tasks that have links to related tasks:
TEST-3: "("cf[10095]" = TEST-3) AND (updated >= -3m)" - There are no tickets with an father epic with the key or the name 'TEST-3')

here is the screenshot but the languade is german and italian :) 

[John Funk]

Is this a Next-gen project?

[Christian Mahlknecht]

nope, a classic (old) one

[John Funk]

This one has me baffled. I am sorry but you will need to put in a support ticket with Atlassian here:

https://support.atlassian.com/contact/#/

Please come back here and post what the resolution was. 

[Jack Brickey]

i haven't looked at the details here or rather I have not attempted to set up a test and try but here would be my first theory...

if the epic is deleted how would the automation be able to reference the epic in the "for stories (or other issues in Epic)" for that condition to pass?

I wonder if an approach like this might not prove positive results:

1. use Labels to add a label like "yes-i-really-want-this-issue-to-disappear-forever". Add the label to the epic you wish to disappear along w/ all of it's children
2. run a daily (or manual) automation to delete all issues w/ that label

opportunity to simplify - just label the epic and configure automation to remove all children for the epic w/ the label first then remove epic last.

[Christian Mahlknecht]

Hi @Jack Brickey @John Funk 

Yeah, you were right.

We've now adjusted everything and the automation is working. We have an additional text field with a control that has to contain a certain text that starts the automation.

Here the screenshot

[John Funk]

Great! Glad it is working for you now.  :-)