Transition subtask according to parent task status

[Ayelet (888)]

Hi

I need to automatically transition all subtask of an issue to X status, whenever the parent task status is X.

How can I achieve that?

[Surya Narayanan]

I was looking for the same, and i figured out the way through Project automation:

pasting the method i followed, for the people who seek answer in future:

"You should have project admin access to create Project automation"

Project automation: Create rule:

Trigger: Issue Transitioned (give all your desired status)

Condition: Put a condition as necessary (i used a JQL to limit only to my project/SOW and issuetype = parent task's type)

Branch: Use Branch Rule and Select Sub-task

Action: transition issue "copy from parent"

you are good to go!

[Ayelet (888)]

Hi all

Peter - I never let the system define my work process. I think it's wrong.

The correct work process is that you create all tasks needed for that work and at some point of the week, the operation manager looks at all parent tasks and approve what can be approved.

There's no declines. the Approval is just for the task to go to work. It will go to work at some point.

Thank you for the jelly script. I will test it.

Thank you all.

Ayelet

[Svante Gustafsson Björkegren]

Great comment @peter!

We are doing exactly this in our ServicDesk project. When e.g. a new user is to be onboarded we create a number of subtasks for each activity involved. And this is done when the ticket is taken by the ServiceDesk agent rather than when the ticket was requested.

We use a combination of the Script Runner and Create on Transition plugins

Cheers,

// Svante

[Ayelet (888)]

Hi

Thank you both for your answers.

I will explain wht this is needed - we have a process that tasks are opened but an operation manager needs to approve them in order to get the work started.

Whenver she approves a parent tasks, all subs should be approved automatically.

Sounds logic?

[Peter Van de Voorde]

Hi Ayelet,

Why don't you simply create the subtasks after the parent task has been approved?

Best regards,

Peter

[Peter Van de Voorde]

Hi Tarun,

Then you could still easily learn your people to not start on a subtask as long as the parent isn't approved.

You could even use a differtent workflow for you subtasks that doesn't include the approved state.

You could also work with filters to show only those tasks that are already approved to your developers.

But you can ofcourse do it with a jelly script (see the jelly script in this blog post for an example of auto transitioning issues in a filter: http://www.petervandevoorde.com/2013/11/13/a-jira-trick-creating-issues-and-sub-tasks-on-transition/)

Best regards,

Peter

[Tarun Sapra]

Hi Peter,

I agree with you, but what if the approval depends on the number of subtasks currently the parent has?

Regards

Tarun

[Tarun Sapra]

Hi Peter,

Yes I know of JellyScripts and Escalation services of script runner plugin, the point I was trying to make was that If the approver wants to see the subtasks before approving the parent and the moment parent is approved the sub-tasks are also approved.

Yes subtasks can be created if they aren't present at the time of parent approval or can use a completly different workflow as well, but I somehow feel Ayelet has a relevant requirement becasue Sub-tasks may require sign off from different executives but the parent can be signed of by a senior executive and the moment the parent is approved then junior executives don't need to signoff and sub-tasks are automatically transitioned.

Regards

Tarun

[Peter Van de Voorde]

Hi Tarun,

I don't say that the auto transition is a bad idea, in some cases, like the ones describe by you and Ayelet, it sounds like a good idea and a nice feature.

But I still think this is more about educating your users then forcing the process into the application. For example : how are you going to stop people from simply adding subtasks after approval? Should this behaviour block everything and submit the parent back for approval?

I think the application should be an indication of the states of the different tasks, but the process and how to work with those tasks should be in the heads of the users, not forced into the application.

But that's totally of topic :)

Best regards,

Peter

[Peter Van de Voorde]

Hi Ayelet,

You should be able to do this using the script runner plugin, or maybe even using the build in jelly scripts.

But as Jobin says : why would you want to do this?

Best regards,

Peter

[Jobin Kuruvilla [Adaptavist]]

You will need to write a plugin (workflow post function) or some scripts to do this.

It is a bad idea though in my opinion because it should really be the other way round. Parent should move to 'X' status when all its subtasks are in 'X' status. The reason I say that is because subtasks are small chunks of work which can be done without the other subtask status. And parent task progress is the sum of all subtasks (which is also not true in every scenario!).