Introducing subtasks for breaking down work in next-gen projects

[Eoin]

@Guillaume Cougard Subtask is the default name we have given an issue type that exists at the bottom of the work breakdown hierarchy. And Epic is the default name for the issue type that exists at the top of the work breakdown hierarchy. In between those two levels you can currently have as many issue types as you like (the default issue types are story, task, bug).

So yes you can have a "Task" issue type as a child of an "Epic" issue type. You can also change the name of this issue type to be "Sub-task" if you want. Hope this helps

[Guillaume Cougard]

@Eoin : not at all. My point was : I have hundreds of tickets that I would like to reorganize. But it does not seem possible to convert an existing task/story into the subtask of a story...

[Mukesh Singh]

Good read. I will think to apply this

[Eugene]

• Providing more visibility of subtask estimation at the parent issue, on the backlog, and in reporting

Need that very much. Especially to list Remaining Time Estimate in Backlog for Tasks and Subtask. And include subtask budgets in summary per each person before starting the sprint.

It definitely has sense to make optional calculation field (budget) in task if it is divided in subtasks

[Eoin]

@Guillaume Cougard I understand. This isn't possible right now and isn't something we'll tackle in the short term. I'm sorry for the inconvenience this will cause. I hope going forward you will be able to utilise subtasks in the manner that you want.

[Emily Shore]

In my next-gen project settings, I added sub-tasks. So I am confident they're enabled for my project. However, both just looking around for it and also following Jira documentation (Create a Subtask section, updated 6/20/19) I still don't see a way to create a sub-task.

Am I missing something obvious?

update: I found this documentation (Manage subtasks in next-gen projects), so it appears you create a sub-task by creating a child. My feedback is that this is a bit confusing as I'd expect to be able to directly add a sub-task.

[Andy Nash]

Will the next-gen project automatically mark a Story as Done, when all Sub-tasks are marked as Done?

[Victor Burgos]

@Emily Shore Look at your Test Ticket Example Task

Attachment Icon -> Sub-task Icon (new icon that wasn't there before) -> Link Issues Icon -> Image Icon -> More Stuff Icon

[Victor Burgos]

@Andy Nash No it doesn't sadly. But that would be nice (optional of course).

Reason why optional, is maybe you want to add comments or other things in the task. If it closed out automatically, it may waste time. Also, what happens when 100% sub-task happens, maybe there's not just To-Do, In Progress, Done (something in between IP and Done)

But, could be nice to had a way to tell it what to do when 100% sub tasks are complete. I do like the progress bar though.

[Andy Nash]

@Victor Burgos - I should have not been so brief in describing what I was considering.
Regardless of what columns you use in your kanban board...

• once one Sub-task is marked as [col2 - In Progress, for example] the Story should automatically be marked as ["In Progress"]
• once all Sub-tasks are marked as [col4 - Done, for example] the Story should automatically be marked as ["Done"]

Of course, this should be optionally configurable as "On" or "Off" for the standard To do | In progress | Done kanban. And similarly, anyone wanting to configure any extra columns in their kanban board would need to decide whether to configure the automation for those new columns (and whether they be, one Sub-task triggered automation, or all Sub-task triggered).

Make sense?

Yes there will be edge cases of teams realising late in the day that there needs to be another Sub-task. And in this case, they can add that new Sub-task and manually move the Story back to it's previous col.

But in the overwhelming majority of cases, the automation will solve a painful manual step in the process.

As you may realise, I'm very keen on DevOps and the concept of automating those things that it is possible to automate. And in true DevOps fashion, there also ought to be a feedback validation loop to catch those Stories that someone is trying to manually move to a col to the right in advance of any Sub-tasks having moved into that column yet.

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@Eoin - any thoughts on the above?

[Marko]

What is meant by soon? On our instance it's not rolled out yet although it's already mentioned in the newsletter.
BTW: We used the next-gen project already and use it for sprint planning with the other projects in one board. But they don't show story points. Why?
Cheers!

[Rene de Ruyter]

Well I added the subtask issue type under issue type in the project settings, but I dont seem to be able to create subtaks under stories.

Any idea of what I missed doing?

[Victor Burgos]

@Rene de Ruyter Literally a few messages before yours :)

Attachment Icon -> Sub-task Icon (new icon that wasn't there before) -> Link Issues Icon -> Image Icon -> More Stuff Icon

For some reasons it's called Child Issues, which technically, I suppose that's what it is, but yeah, they should rename that thing to make it clearer. 

[Eoin]

@Andy Nash we'll look to make this possible in the longer term through a new broader rules/automation solution, although to be transparent this isn't something we've kicked off yet.

[Eoin]

@Marko can you send me your sitename to eryan@atlassian.com and we'll take a look?

For the story points, there is a new story point estimate field that we have created for next-gen projects so you will be unable to use the story points field that you may have used in classic projects. Once you enable Estimation in the Features page under Project settings, you will see the new story points estimate field available in the Issue types page under Project settings

[Becky Klein]

I need to create more than one sub-task type...this is already available in the classic version. I'm having to create a complicated workflow for my users...very frustrating!

[Marc Kirkwood]

"Reintroducing"?

[Jessie Cao]

@Eoin We have sub-tasks enabled as an issue under project settings in our instance, but they do not appear in the backlog view, nor the board view: https://careinsync.atlassian.net/. Some examples are LT-152, and LT-150. Any advice?

[Eoin]

HI @Jessie Cao The subtasks can be viewed in the issue view, and can be viewed on the board when grouping by subtasks is enabled. The grouping is currently an admin setting and we will be making this as a user setting as our next iteration. Hope this helps

Thanks

[Becky Klein]

When you say "can be viewed on the board "when grouping by subtasks is enabled", does this mean that it's not available yet, or can it be set by an admin now?

[mostafa sobhy]

i can create subtask successfully but i cannot see them on roadmap board

[Eoin]

@Becky Klein it can be set by an admin now. We'll look to make this available for all users in an upcoming piece of work. Thanks

[Becky Klein]

@Eoin When I try to create a task, the only ones available are Story and Bug. I go to "create issue type" and I am unable to add a sub-task type. I am an administrator. Would you please share the steps that I need to take to make this happen?

[Eoin]

Hi @Becky Klein - here is the support page on how to create issue types in next-gen projects... https://confluence.atlassian.com/jirasoftwarecloud/set-up-issue-types-in-next-gen-projects-949233753.html It's currently only possible to have one subtask issue type. Let me know if this doesn't help. Thanks

[Becky Klein]

Oh...I thought that one could create more than one issue of the sub-task type.

Is this on the radar?