Moving subtasks along with their parent tasks up one level

[Clara Fernández]

I have a software team-managed project where we work mainly with task-level issue types that have children subtasks associated.

We have now decided that we want to work with epics as our main issue type rather than tasks. But when I bulk-move my tasks to make them epics, the children subtasks lose their associations with them and are left as "orphans".

This is a problem as we have many tasks to move and we want to keep their dependant subtasks attached to them (whether these remain as subtasks or are converted to tasks we don't really care).

Is there any way to make these changes in bulk? I.e. for child subtasks to be automaticallly moved to remain attached to their parent issue?

[Trudy Claspill · Accepted solution]

Hello @Clara Fernández 

Welcome to the Atlassian community.

Parent and child issues must come from directly adjacent levels. As such, Epics can't have subtasks.

There is no built in single button solution for what you want to do. Brainstorming a solution...

1. Create a custom Text Field for and add it to the Subtasks.
2. Create an Automation Rule that selects the subtasks that you plan to convert, and have the Automation Rule note their current parent's key in the new custom Text field.
3. Do a bulk change to convert the Subtasks to Tasks
4. Do a bulk change to convert the original Tasks to Epics.
5. Use an Automation Rule to access the converted subtasks and set their Parent field to the key you noted in the custom Text field.

Automation is not a good solution for automating the change of issue type (converting subtasks to tasks, or tasks to Epics) due to the potential for the destination issue type to have a different workflow, field set, or required fields. Using the Bulk Change feature would prompt you to make the necessary changes in those areas.

You'll need to be careful about the JQLs you use to select the Subtasks to convert to Tasks and the original Tasks to convert to Epics to ensure you don't pick up a converted Subtasks in the JQL you use to select Tasks to convert to Epics.

[Clara Fernández]

Hi @Trudy Claspill 

Thank you so much for your suggestion!

I am trying this, just with one variation: swapping steps 3 and 4, which is more convenient for me for reasons I won't get into right now. Should work the same way in theory, right?

However I am finding two issues:

1. When converting subtasks to tasks, the assignee gets cleared, even though both issue types have the 'assignee' field present. Not sure if this is a bug, but it doesn't happen when converting tasks to epics.

2. I am not able to set an automation rule as suggested in step 5. I have done some Googling and even asked ChatGPT for help, but I didn't manage to make it work. Any suggestions?

[Trudy Claspill]

Hello @Clara Fernández 

Please show us the automation rule you have created, and explain what you mean exactly by "doesn't work". Include screen images of 

- the entire automation rule

- details of each step in the rule

- the output recorded in the rule Audit Log when the rule executed.

[Clara Fernández]

Hi @Trudy Claspill 

The automation I set up looks like this:

When manually triggered from any task (as only testing for now) > update parent key to match the value on my custom field.

The custom field contains the exact key that should be used, as populated by a previous automation.

Attaching screenshots for all of this.

I appreciate the help.

[Clara Fernández]

I forgot to attach the screenshot form the audit log. Here it is: 

It's not failed so I assume something's wrong in the logic of it.

[Trudy Claspill]

Hello @Clara Fernández 

What is the "Parent Key" field?

And what is field customfield_12149? 

In the Edit action that you are applying to a subtask that has been converted to a Task, you need to set the Parent field to make that Task a child of an Epic.

[Clara Fernández]

Hi @Trudy Claspill 

The "Parent Key" is the custom field I created as step 1 of your suggested approach, whose ID is 12149.

I now found the issue with my automation and fixed it, it works!

Thank you so much again.

Any idea how to overcome the issue of the assignee field getting cleared when converting subtasks to tasks?

[Trudy Claspill]

When I create a filter that selects subtasks with a variety of Assignees, and then use Bulk Change to Move the issues to a non-subtask issue type, the Assignee field is not getting cleared.

What are the exact steps you are using to convert the subtasks to a non-subtask issue type?

[Clara Fernández]

Hi @trudy_p 

I ran another test and the assignee didn't get cleared this time so I think I am good to go!

Thank you so much for all your help.