How do you get the story status to update the epic?

[Kayleen Cucugliello]

Each Epic has 3 stories in it. I'd like to update the epic status with the current story status. 

1. What story is currently in progress? Is it on time? Is there a blocker?
2. Did any of the stories get updated? If so, copy data from the story to the epic.
3. How do I ensure each story is completely filled in before closing?

[Trudy Claspill]

Hello @Kayleen Cucugliello 

1a. How do you know that any given story is "in progress"? Is that based on the Status of the story? What if more than one child story of an Epic is in progress.

1b. How do you determine if a story is "on time"?

1c. How do you determine if there is a blocker for a story? Are you using issue linking and the Blocks link type?

2. What information exactly do you want copied from a story to its parent Epic when a story gets updated?

3. What is the definition of "completely filled in"? You might be able to accomplish this by putting Conditions on the transition to the status that equates to "closing", to validate that specified fields contain data. If they don't, then the transition would not be available. If it is permissible for the user to enter the required data while executing the transition, and if this is for a Company Managed project, then you can create a Transition Screen that includes the fields that you want to require to have data, and attach that screen to the transition for "closing". Then you would also add a Validator to check that the fields are filled in, else the transition would not be able to be completed.

[Kayleen Cucugliello]

Hi Trudy!

1a. It is that based on the Status of the story! If more than 1 is in progress, Only one will be in progress at a time. 

1b. By the calculated due date.

1c. I have a custom field that the teams need to fill in the blocker.

2. The dates in the story

3. All the fields should be filled in in the ticket. 

[Trudy Claspill]

Hello @Kayleen Cucugliello 

Let us back up for a moment.

What problem are you trying to solve by copying data from an In Progress child story to its parent Epic? I asked you what data specifically you wanted to copy and you said

2. The dates in the story

Which date fields specifically do you want from the Story? Which date fields specifically in the Epic do you want to update? Can you provide a table with the field names, mapping the fields from the Story to the fields in the Epic? Example:

Story field	Epic Field
Start date	Start date
Due date	Due date

Are you going to be overwriting data in the Epic each time another child issue changes to In Progress? How does that impact the problem you are trying to solve?

Also you said you wanted to update the Epic with the "current story status", and you mentioned wanting to know if the story is on time and if it is blocked. But you in answer to my questions you only mentioned that you want to copy dates from the story to the Epic.  

What event do you want to use to trigger an update to the Epic? Do you want to review the child issues once a day and update the Epic? Do you want changes in any of the child stories to trigger a review of all of the stories and an update of the Epic?

1a. It is that based on the Status of the story! If more than 1 is in progress, Only one will be in progress at a time. 

How do you ensure no more than one child story is in progress at any given time?

1b. By the calculated due date.

Exactly how do you evaluate that an issue is "on time" based on the due date? If the due date is in the future compared to today, does that mean it is "on time"? What if the due date is today? What if the due date is in the past?

1c. I have a custom field that the teams need to fill in the blocker.

What type of field is that? If the field is empty does that mean there is no blocker? If the field has some data, any kind of date, does that mean there is a blocker?

3. All the fields should be filled in in the ticket. 

Are you working with a Team Managed project or a Company Managed project?

In general terms, you can modify the workflow for the issue(s) so that when an issue is transitioned to the status you use for "closed", the process can check if fields have values and prevent the transition if they do not. However, native functionality does not necessarily support checking all types of fields to ensure they have been filled in. Team Managed projects and Company Managed projects have different capabilities in this regard. And the method to implement these checks is different between the two types of projects.