How to track hundreds of products, each with pre-defined tasks

[IT Developer]

I am in ecommerce companies that sources its product from China and sell to US market. There is a pre-defined tasks for each product that tells us its lifecycle from start till finished. Let's say 20 tasks for each product from setting up its web site, copy writing, optimization, posting ads, etc.

Each team of 5 people handle around 200 products and growing. It will be too cumbersome to create tasks for each product, which means 20 tasks x 200 products = 400 tickets!

Any thoughts on how to simplify the tracking? Probably using components or other JIRA features that I have never used before?

[Bhushan Nagaraj]

Hi Kelvin,

There are multiple ways of handling this and will require further analysis to recommend what would work for you best. But here is one simple approach you might want to try.

If you are planning to track them all in one single JIRA project, you can setup a master template issue with each individual task as a sub-task. You can then use the Clone Issue feature to clone an issue including the sub-tasks for any new projects that come through.

https://confluence.atlassian.com/jira064/cloning-an-issue-720416353.html

Thanks

Bhushan

[IT Developer]

So the idea is I create a story with defined sets of sub-tasks, then clone for each product right? only story can be cloned? what about epic along with all stories, tasks and sub task associated with it?

Does Trello support this function also?

Thanks for you help Bhusan.

[Bhushan Nagaraj]

Hi Kelvin,

I would like to know more.

1. Is it different teams working on each product?

2. Does the team follow agile methodology? Specifically, do they plan work in sprints?

Thank you

Bhushan

[IT Developer]

1. nope, each team working on their assigned products (200 producst per team)

2. yep, they work in sprints

[Bhushan Nagaraj]

Hi Kelvin,

There is a feature request for including linked stories when cloning at epic. You can vote on it at  https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/JSWSERVER-7721

Meanwhile, ScriptRunner provides a built-in script that allows you to clone an issue to an existing or a new project. Refer to "Clone an issue and links" section at https://jamieechlin.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/GRV/pages/33030148/Built-In+Scripts

With the above script, you can try implementing a solution as below.

1. Create a project in JIRA that serves as your template. This project will contain the template Epic and all associated Stories. Let's call it "Product Templates".

2. Create a Project Select custom field on the Epic in "Product Templates" project.

3. Create and configure a custom workflow. Add a transition named "Create Product" with a screen which allows the user to select a Project from the custom field selected in Step 2. Add a post-function that runs the ScriptRunner "Clone an issue and links" script. The target project is the project selected in the custom field.

4. When the team wants to onboard a new product, they start by visiting the "Template Product" project in JIRA. They view the Epic they would like to clone. They click on "Create Product" and they are displayed with a screen that will allow them to select a target project they would like to clone to. The post-function, clones the epic and all linked stories to the target project.

Give it a try. Hope it works out for you :)

Cheers

Bhushan