How do I automate the creation of an epic for a board each quarter with a naming convention?

[Zoe Rowley]

Hi,

Each quarter we create new epics for our tech debt and move the remaining issues from the old quarter over to the new one (ideally doing a bit of an audit along the way to close out any redundant issues).

I would like to automate;

1. The creation of a new epic each quarter (Australian FY quarter) with a specific naming convention ( current epics are Q1 FY26 Tech Debt, so the next one will be Q2 FY26) for a particular board/team

2. Migration of all issues from previous epic to new one

Has anyone done something similar or are inspired by this challenge.

Cheers,

Z

[Bill Sheboy · Accepted solution]

Hi @Zoe Rowley -- Welcome to the Atlassian Community!

Creating the new Epics and updating the remaining ones from the prior quarter can be done using an automation rule.  Please look here to learn more and get started:

https://support.atlassian.com/cloud-automation/docs/jira-cloud-automation/

Regarding the use of financial quarters, you may use date / time functions to adjust the current date and format that to your quarters.

https://support.atlassian.com/cloud-automation/docs/jira-smart-values-date-and-time/

For example, assuming your Q1-2026 started in October 2025, a rule could generate that by shifting the current date by 3 months before getting the quarter and year values:

Q{{now.plusMonths(3).format("Q")}}-{{now.plusMonths(3).format("yyyy")}}

Kind regards,
Bill

[Zoe Rowley]

Hi Bill, yes thank you ... that looks like what I had been trying to figure out! much appreciated.

[Jonas Moehringer - ij-solutions]

Hey Zoe,

you could probably use Jira Automation rules to do that. A scheduled rule could create an epic each quarter. You can define the summary with smart values to have the name of the quarter included.

Moving the items in epic to the new one could also be done by an automation changing the parent field to the newly created epic.

An alternative would be to use an app like Epic Clone. It allows cloning of a template Epic each quarter with an automation and the apps REST API. In this case you would have copies of the existing epic and issues and can close the existing ones.

Disclaimer: I am the developer of Epic Clone.

Cheers,

Jonas

[Zoe Rowley]

Hi Jonas, 

thank you for your reply, the changing of parent is a great suggestion!

Z