Moving a Story to Done when Tasks are done and with manual approval

Question

Hi! Forewarning that I am pretty new to Jira...

I am setting up an automation that will move a Story to "Done" once all the Tasks that are linked to it (using "Child of" relationship) are "Done".

Currently, it works if the Related issues condition has the condition as "Some match specified JQL". It isn't working when I try to set it to "All match specified JQL" and "Status = Done". Instead, I get the error in the attached screenshot, "The following issues did not match the condition". Stories should only move to "Done" once every Task linked with "Child of" is "Done".

My second requirement is that the Story is not automatically completed. Many times, Tasks are moved to Done, and then more Tasks pop up for that Story. I want to have some way to control the automation so that I can approve the Story to move to "Done".

Bill Sheboy · Answer

Hi @Caroline Turner -- Welcome to the Atlassian Community!

First regarding the "error" you observe in the log, that is indicating one or more issues did not match the condition.  Have you checked the status of the issues which did not match for all link types?

Next, with a Jira Automation rule, there is no way to pause execution and ask a person a question.

It seems your team's working methods allow linking a Task to an already completed story which you consider related.  Please pause to consider "why does that happen":

* is that a mistake, or
* is that a normal practice?

If it is a mistake, you could create another rule, triggered on issue linking, which detects the condition, removes the link, and notifies the user of the reason the link was removed, perhaps using a comment mention or email.

If it is a normal practice, I suggest there is other criteria involved in considering the linked story completed.  Perhaps your current rule should account for that criteria or not move the story to "done", and instead notify someone (e.g., the assignee) to review the story for closure with a comment mention or email.

Kind regards,
Bill