Automation - Epic creation with stories attached. (i realise this is not new)

[S_ van den Huijsen]

Dear reader,

Before i came here i had already tried myself. I also consulted this supportsite and Copilot and even our internal support team that offers Jira to us.
It seems quite impossible to get this done and it's very underwhelming for me at least.
Im not looking for external addons to do this as i have no control over what our company offers, i cant decide this on my own.
Im looking for an integrated way in the Jira i have. And right now it seems i have to do all these things by hand every month.


My desire:
The option (button) to auto create an EPIC and several STORIES attached.
And not a button that i can only activate via an already existing story/epic.
According to several support items ive found, i should be able to activate the rule from the main screen (KANBAN)

The idea behind it:
I have a monthly task to do. This task involves several security checks that need to be done by several people.
My goal was to create an EPIC for this. The EPIC should have a name like "Monthly check month X, year X."
After i create the EPIC i will edit the month and year accordingly by hand.
And then have a seperate story for each check attached to this EPIC.

When all the stories (checks) are finished, i will close the EPIC.
Next month i will do the same thing. Create a new EPIC with those same checks as stories.

Status:
I have tried a lot of things and i can get some things working, but i can either only create a story or an epic.
The automation is not very intuitive in my view. And why cant i create some sort of button with this. 
So far i can only activate my automation rule when im inside a story/epic. 
And this is also one of the things that just feels weird, because they seem to link to this story/epic while im really trying to create a new one.

[Hector Florin]

Hi @S_ van den Huijsen

I hope you're doing well.

I've reviewed your use case, which I'm still confused with something, but I've done a test and I'm able to create an automation rule that can create multiple work items when an Epic is created.

In this example ,I have 3. 

On each story, they are linked to the epic using the Parent field

Now, in your use case, you've mentioned that you need several stories. Sometimes, you need three, and other times, you may need more or fewer.

How are you deciding how many you need?

I understand that you want to achieve it with A4J, however, it may be too tricky, or you may face some automation limitations in the feature, which all can be avoided if you're using an automation addon like Power Scripts 

Automation limits there are none - Power Scripts 

I hope it helps.

Thank you.

Hector

[S_ van den Huijsen]

Thanks for the suggestion!

I've tried to copy what you mentioned, with just 1 story for now.
I cant paste a picture here to show what i did.

The first action "When: work item created" sounds like it will create an epic with substories every time i create an epic.
This is not what i want, i want it to be created on demand (Manually) in certain situations.
For me to manually activate this, i see only an option to run the automation from an existing Epic.
There is no visible way to have this rule activated outside of an existing
I am not able to get the "PARENT > trigger work item" to show. 
I wish i could share a picture because there are some differences between the options i have.

Result now, im probably not doing this right:
When i activate it from inside an existing epic, no new epic is created but it just creates a story which is also not linked to anything.
The auditlog tells me it created the story, but nothing else.

[Bill Sheboy]

Hi @S_ van den Huijsen -- Welcome to the Atlassian Community!

For an automation question like this, context is important for the community to help.  Please post the following:

• what version of Jira are you using: Cloud, Server, or Data Center
• for Cloud, what type of project is this: company-managed, team-managed, JPD, etc.
• an image of your complete automation rule in a single image for continuity
• images of any relevant actions / conditions / branches
• an image of the audit log details showing the rule execution
• explain what is not working as expected and why you believe that to be the case

Until we see those...

First, you will likely not be able to add a button to start a rule from Jira.  Although there is a feature in Confluence for that, the capabilities are quite limited (in my opinion).

Next, what could be done as alternatives:

• You note creating a monthly Epic with child Stories.  If that is predictable, a rule with a Scheduled Trigger could be used to create them.  If not, a manually triggered rule could be used.
• You also note when all of the Stories are completed, the Epic is then completed.  This may be done with a second rule, and there are indeed template rules in projects which could be used as a starting point.  For example, see the one named "When all child work items are completed → then close parent".

Kind regards,
Bill

[S_ van den Huijsen]

• what version of Jira are you using: Cloud, Server, or Data Center
  I don't know where i can find this info im afraid. The URL we use is "https://jira.mycompany.org"
• for Cloud, what type of project is this: company-managed, team-managed, JPD, etc.
• an image of your complete automation rule in a single image for continuity
  Can i upload pics here? I tried because i see the benefits as well.
• images of any relevant actions / conditions / branches
• an image of the audit log details showing the rule execution
• explain what is not working as expected and why you believe that to be the case
  First i want to have an option to activate the automation rule outside of an existing epic/story.
  If this is not possible then im ok with it, but when i create them now through an existing epic, it only creates a new story with nothing linked.
  
  
  
  

[Bill Sheboy]

Yes, you may upload images of your rule using the "Insert Photos" control when responding.  If you post those it will help the community provide better suggestions.

[S_ van den Huijsen]

I realise a constructive answer takes time and effort. 
If there are guidelines/pages i need to look at first please let me know, i want to put in effort.