How should sub-tasks work on Kanban boards?

[John Price]

I work support for a 2000 user Jira Cloud installation.  Most teams use Scrum, but as teams transition to Kanban we run into the same problem over and over.  This assumes a workflow like:

New - backlog

Ready (To Do column)

In Progress

Done

• In Scrum boards, sub-tasks automatically become part of a sprint if the parent story is in the sprint, so they always show on the board.  New sub-tasks added as the story is worked also show on the board.
• In Kanban boards, sub-tasks of in-progress stories go to the backlog by default.  This assumes their workflow starts at New (default).  Every sub-task that gets created is initially orphaned from the parent, way down in the backlog someplace.

We are planning to work around this either using a workflow plugin ($$) or with custom WebHook code.  This discussion is about whether Kanban boards should just work like Scrum boards:

"If the parent is on the board, the sub-task is too."

[João Nunes]

Hi John, how are you today?

Kanban and Scrum are two different methodologies so it is expected that they have their own singularities such as the time frame for each methodology. Hence, it is expected that we have different functionalities between Kanban and Scrum board on Jira.

So, based on your workflow, where New is the first status, in case both Scrum and Kanban use the same workflow, when you create a new issue (such as a sub-task), its status will be New. In both Scrum and Kanban, the child issue will not inherit its parent status (unless you use and automation for that) because for Jira, a new issue will always start in the first status of the workflow.

That being said, what can be done on the Kanban perspective is to disable the Kanban backlog so all the issues will be displayed on the Kanban board. For that, please follow the step-by-step below:

1. Navigate to the Kanban board > click on [...] at the top right corner > Board settings.
2. Click on Columns then drag and drop the status placed on the Kanban Backlog column to the New column.

That should help you.

Also, there is this feature request which aims to create a automation between the child issue status and its parent status. We strongly recommend you to access that feature request page, click on *vote* for that to increase its relevance and click on *Start watching this issue* to receive all the updates about that. Also, we would appreciate your feedback on that feature, you can do this by leaving a comment on the ticket, this helps us prioritize and understand the use case of the feature request.

If you are not familiar with our Feature Request Policy, you can learn more about it here.

Regarding use a plugin to automate the status transition, we can use Automation lite for Jira Cloud where we can configure that kind of automation rule. Be aware that the plugin has a limit of 300 free rule executions per calendar month so you might need to upgrade the add-on after you reach that limited. In this blog there is a step-by-step procedure on how to configure that automation with Epics and their child issues so it might guide you with that.
 
This is a third-party add-on so our knowledge about it is limited, you might consider contacting the plugin Support for further assistance.

Let me know if that helped you.

Kind regards,
JOÃO NUNES
Jira Support Team