Is there a quick way to link parent issue and children issues status?

[Taylor Douthitt]

Hi - I'm looking for a quick way to have parent issue statuses dependent on their children status.

Example: Epic 1 has 3 children tasks (Task 1, Task 2, Task 3).

Task 1 - To Do

Task 2 - In Progress

Task 3 - To Do

Since Task 2 is In Progress, the Epic will be In Progress. When all 3 tasks are done, the Epic will update to Done. If all 3 tasks are in the To Do status, the Epic should be in the To Do status.

I would like for all parent-children relationships to have this functionality (Initiative-Epic, Epic-Task, Epic-Story, Task-Subtask, Story-Subtask). Is there a quick way to do this or do I need to create a bunch of automation? I'm new to Jira Project so still learning the ropes. Thanks!

[Kimball_Robinson]

Here is how I created an automation rule to set the parent status as a label on all child issues:
https://community.atlassian.com/t5/Jira-questions/Re-How-to-create-an-Automation-to-copy-Labels-from-Epics/qaq-p/2769479/comment-id/1038297#M1038297 

[Trudy Claspill]

@Kimball_Robinson 

The OP is not asking about copying Labels. They are asking about changing the status of a parent based on status changes occurring on the child issues.

Your solution does not apply to the question.

Additionally your solution is for Jira Cloud and this question concerns Jira Data Center.

[Trudy Claspill]

Hello @Taylor Douthitt 

Are you trying to do this for multiple projects?

Are all the issues within a given "family" in just a single project, or do you have parent/child relationships across projects?

If you are trying to do this for multiple projects or issues that span projects, do you use Company Managed projects or Team Managed projects or both?

Do all the issues involved in the "family" use the same workflow? Are you using just To Do, In Progress, and Done?

Do you have any restrictions on the workflows that would prevent issues from moving freely between statuses?

You will likely need multiple Automation Rules, but just how many depends on the answers to the questions above.

[Taylor Douthitt]

Are all the issues within a given "family" in just a single project, or do you have parent/child relationships across projects? 
- Just one project 

do you use Company Managed projects or Team Managed projects or both?
- Team Managed

Are you using just To Do, In Progress, and Done?
- Correct

Do you have any restrictions on the workflows that would prevent issues from moving freely between statuses?

- Not that I'm aware of, they should be able to move freely. There have been no additional restrictions I've put in place

[Trudy Claspill]

You provided this description of your hierarchy:

(Initiative-Epic, Epic-Task, Epic-Story, Task-Subtask, Story-Subtask)

The issue hierarchy in a Team Managed project is

Epic
|-- standard level issues (i.e. Task, Story)
    |-- subtask

Example from Project Settings / Issue Types:

Can you show the comparable image from your project, please? Team Managed projects don't support adding another level above Epic. I'm trying to understand how you have added Initiative to the hierarchy.

[Taylor Douthitt]

I'm using Initiative as a parent to Epics in my project

[Trudy Claspill]

Are you using Jira Cloud or Jira Data Center? You can check that by clicking on the ? button in the upper right corner of the menu bar and selecting About Jira. If you get a pop-up like this then you are using Jira DC.

If you get a pop up like this you are using Jira Cloud.

The image you provided is for an Issue Type Scheme. Issue Type Schemes don't apply to Team Managed projects. They apply only to Company Managed projects.

Can you verify the type of the project that you are working with by looking it up on the View All Projects page under the Projects menu and telling us what it says in the Type column? You should also be able to find the information at the bottom of the navigation panel on the left when viewing the project data. Team Managed projects are available only on Jira Cloud.

Are you an administrator for the project or for the Jira system overall?

The next thing we need to confirm is how Initiatives are made parents of Epics. In the Epics is there a Parent or Parent Link field that is filled with the ID of the parent Initiative?

[Taylor Douthitt]

Looks like I'm working through Jira Data Center. For the type of project there are three options: Software, Service and Business. My project is a Software project type.

I'm the admin to my project, but not an admin for the Jira system overall. 

In the Epics is there a Parent or Parent Link field that is filled with the ID of the parent Initiative?

- Yes, correct. I have linked initiatives as parent links in all of my Epics.

Hopefully all this info helps, thank you!

[Trudy Claspill]

What version of Jira Data Center are you using?

You might have access to Automation Rules. Jira Administrators can create automation rules, and they can also allow Project Administrators to create Automation Rules.

With Automation Rules you could create a rule triggered by the change of status of the child issue. The rule construct the rule to look at the the statuses of the child issues under the same parent, and then tell it how to set the parent status based on those values.

Because you are on Jira Data Center you would need a rule to do this when the child is a subtask, another rule for when the childis at the story level, and another rule for when the child is an Epic.

An example would be something like this:

The rule for a child issue transitioning to To Do would be the same except for changing the Status value in the Trigger, Condition, and Transition.

The rule for In Progress would be slightly different. Since the child issue is transitioning to In Progress and you know you want the parent to be In Progress also if any child is In Progress, then you would not need the condition within the For branch.

I suspect the rule for updating the parent Initiative would be different because Automation Rules in Jira DC don't have a native For branch for parents in the extended issue type hierarchy. I don't have a DC system with an extended issue hierarchy where I could test out the solution. I'm not sure if it could use the For Related Issues / Linked Issues option, or if another method would need to be used.

Each rule would need this box checked on the rule details page.

Documentation for Automation Rules for Jira DC can be found here:

https://confluence.atlassian.com/automation/

Let us know if you need additional information/guidance on this.