Add in for managing "child" tasks?

[Mary Mascari]

I've got a workflow that's pretty complicated and I'm not sure of the best way to handle it.

The business process is

- get a request for x number of devices

- configure each device with information specific to the device

- pack devices into one box and ship out

- check devices in when they come back (which isn't necessarily all at once)

I've got two intersecting workflows, as I see it. One for each device, and one for the parent request.

They need to be associated somehow. It needs to be easy for users to update information on the child tasks in bulk and quickly.

Can you guys recommend any good tools or techniques for handling this sort of thing?

[Dirk Ronsmans]

Hey @Mary Mascari ,

Have you considered using either sub-tasks or just related issues?

The main issue (I would think a Service Request) would have the initial request for x number of devices and that would then generate a subtask for each device.

Just like a regular issue, a subtask has it's own workflow. A subtask just means that it cannot exist without a parent issue.

You can also add some conditions on the main issue where you don't allow resolution until all subtasks have been resolved.

https://support.atlassian.com/jira-cloud-administration/docs/configure-sub-tasks/

https://support.atlassian.com/jira-service-management-cloud/docs/create-issues-and-sub-tasks/

[Mary Mascari]

I'm with you on the sub-tasks.

I need a way to capture the number of sub-tasks to create, I guess. 

If someone's requesting 20 of Device A and 7 of Device B, I need a way for them to indicate that, so I can automatically spawn those sub-tasks.

I've got about 10 device types at the moment, but they change as new ones are added and old ones are removed, so I don't want to create a field for each device type (e.g. "Number of Device As Requested: ") 

How does Jira handle a multidimensional array?

[Matthew Chapman]

Hi There, the suggestions above should work well once you have logged your initial hardware request, perhaps you can consider using JIRA asset management as a front end

 Asset management & configuration management Jira | Insight (atlassian.com)  

Asset management features in Jira Service Management - YouTube

If the hardware is an asset, and you want to track these it might be worthwhile looking at a combination approach, however if the assets are tracked somewhere else, there wouldn't be any value.

If you want to stick with basic JIRA then I'd consider using a quantity field, you won't need to set one up per device/model, it will be available for any task if you assign it correctly.   

Good luck,