Create rule/condition to disable "Done" status for Epic untill all Child work items are "Done"

[emilyhueg]

Hi, I have a team-managed project where I recently added a rule/condition to the transition from Any ⇾ "Done", such that all subtasks must be completed before a parent task can be set to "Done".

This works perfectly fine for Tasks, but what about Epics?

Epics don't have Subtasks, but have Child work items

How do I add a rule/condition such that all child work items must be completed before an Epic can be set to "Done"? 

[Alexander Hohmann · Accepted solution]

I had the same question once and created a rule with an overnight 'planned' trigger that would scan all Epics and set those to 'Done' whose child work items were all completed. That has the advantage of nobody having to actually think of closing the Epic. That way you have automatic consistency, albeit the day after.

I guess you could also create a rule triggered by any child work item being set to completed, that will then start a branch for the related Epic and have that branch scan through all other child work items and set the Epic to 'Done' if all of the latter are completed.

[emilyhueg]

Thanks but we actually don't want i to automatically turn the parent to Done.

We only want it to be unable to be set to Done until the children is Done, but maybe the system is not made for this to be an option yet.

but I might try to give it a try until we have another solution :)

Thank you for your answer

[Alexander Hohmann]

OK, that is clearer - and quite easy. Create a rule where the trigger is the Epic being set to 'Done', set a condition for child work items, checking whether some of these fulfill the JQL statement 'status != Done', and if that condition is true, set the Epic's status back to the previous status.

You could add another action adding a comment stating the reason for the return into the previous state.

You possibly need to create a transition backwards from 'Done' to the previous status in the workflow, otherwise the rule will not execute.