Automating Parent Status Updates Based on Child Status in Jira

[Sunny Liao]

Hi Jira Community,

I need assistance with setting up automation to update the status of parent issues based on the status of their child issues. I would like to automate this process to save time, as manual updates are inefficient.

Is there a way to automatically update parent issue statuses based on their child issue statuses in Jira? I feel this should be a basic functionality, but I’m not sure if there's a setting to enable this or if I need to set up specific automation rules.

Here are the status updates I am looking to achieve:

Subtask -> Task

• If all Subtasks of a Task are Done, set the Task to Done.
• If any Subtask is To Do or In Progress, set the Task to In Progress.
• If all Subtasks are in To Do or there are none, set the Task to To Do.

Task -> Epic

• If all Tasks of an Epic are Done, set the Epic to Done.
• If any Task is To Do or In Progress, set the Epic to In Progress.
• If all Tasks are in To Do or there are none, set the Epic to To Do.

Epic -> Feature

• If all Epics of a Feature are Done, set the Feature to Done.
• If any Epic is To Do or In Progress, set the Feature to In Progress.
• If all Epics are in To Do or there are none, set the Feature to To Do.

Any guidance on how to set this up efficiently or if there is an existing feature that can handle this would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you!

[Mohanraj Thangamuthu · Accepted solution]

Hello, Good day. Please refer to the automation library. https://www.atlassian.com/software/jira/automation-template-library

[Sunny Liao]

Thank you @Mohanraj Thangamuthu  this is helpful! 

[kathryn basile]

@Mohanraj Thangamuthu sorry do you use JQL subtasks match done and if yes, than what is the JQL?

[Mohanraj Thangamuthu]

Hello, the JQL that we need to use in above rule is "status = Done".

[kathryn basile]

Sorry I am completely new to this. Do I use smart values for this or can I simply put "status = Done"?

[Mohanraj Thangamuthu]

Hello, Good day. You can use related issue condition. Hopefully following screenshots will help you.

[Paul Reich]

I already use similar automations, but I would love some help to configure further.

I am updating the parent issue to match the child issue in this scenario:

If child issue status transitioned to "in progress" then update parent status from the child.

But I would like to update the rule because currently if the parent issue is "in progress" and a child issue is transitioned from "to do" to "in progress" the automation still runs, so I get a message like this:

Automation for Jira transitioned a Story from In Progress ⟶ In Progress

I would like to only transition the parent when the status is not the same.