How do fields get mirror from EPIC to a Child issue?

[Luis Dominguez]

How would our team be able to have fields transfer information from an epic into a child issue. We track certain fields dealing with our project ID, requestors, assignee, and developers, however, it has been become a manual process that our team has to keep going back to epic to view certain field data. 

I would want to know how when I enter information in the fields section in the EPIC, that information can transfer over to the fields in child issues. 

[Stefan Salzl · Accepted solution]

Hi @Luis Dominguez ,

from how far I got your requirement I think this could be done with JIRA internal automation. Just would have to specify the use case more in detail:

• when/what exactly should trigger the update?
• Could you describe the scenario like kind of "given - when - then"?

Best
Stefan

[Stefan Salzl]

Hi @Luis Dominguez 

This example of an automation rule will always be triggered when an EPIC issue is updated. If this condition is fullfilled all stories/issues in the epic will be edited and inherit (in this case the value of the field "Country") from the EPIC (see screenshot)

There might be some further refinement of the trigger or fields or conditions but maybe this is something you could start with to then better investigate your special requirements while testing the rule.

Looking forward to hearing from you.

Best
Stefan

[Luis Dominguez]

Hi Stefan,

Thank you let me try this out. The way we run projects is unique and it would be to mirror the child and parent status

[Luis Dominguez]

• when/what exactly should trigger the update?
  • When the status changes in the child issue (or if it is moved on the board)
  • The epic status should changed too-
  • For example the story changes from status from design to testing-the epic status should change too
  • We use a scrum board 
• Could you describe the scenario like kind of "given - when - then"?
  • Given that the issue "story" status has been changed when the "story" status is changed, then the status for the "epic" is changed

[Rahul Jith]

Hi @Luis Dominguez ,

Hope you are doing well!

With reference to the above logic which was really helpful to sort few of my issues, I also wanted to capture the parent epic status to a custom filed in my child item(should not be mirroring - means if child status changes it shouldn't trigger any changes to parent status). Only the current status I wanted to get captured in my child custom filed. 

Regards

Rahul Jith

[Barbara Schwarzwald [Decadis AG]]

Hello Luis,

there are different options to tackle your problem:

1) Built In Jira Automation

As you are working on Jira Cloud, you could use built-in Automation for your purpose.

Example to Update Assignee on Epics children:

• Go to Project Settings -> Automation -> Create Rule to create a project-specific rule or System Settings -> Global Automation -> Create Rule to create a Jira-wide rule.
• There you can pick Field value changed as the Trigger and select all fields you want to keep updated.
• Via New Branch -> Branch Rule /related Issues you can select on the Stories (or other Issues in Epic), such that the rule updates all children of your epic.
• Finally, the action Edit issue lets you copy field values from the epic parent to fields in the children.

The result (for the Assignee field example should look like this:)

However, this rule might trigger quite often on your instance and there are significant limits on the Automation Rule executions per month in the different cloud plans.
(Currently: Free: 100 total Executions per month, Standard 500 total Executions per Month, Premium: 1000*#users per month.) Having an automation rule run so much might also affect performance.

This problem grows if you add an additional similar rule that updates changes from stories into the epic and propagates to all "sibling" stories again.

2) Leverage an app (e.g. Jira Workflow Toolbox)

The Alternative would be to leverage an App for this and trigger the updates (manually) with a post-function. For example with the App Jira Workflow Toolbox you can do the following.

• Add a Transition All -> All to your Stories/Task workflow, called e.g. "Fetch Info from Epic".
  
• Add the JWT Post-Function Update fields (by JWT)
• Add the field(s) you want to change to the list and select "Parser Expression" as value
• In the Parser you can select the correct field from the "Add field" menu. Just remember to select "from parent issue".

If you add this post-function to the Create-Transition of your workflow as well, the story/task will also be initialized correctly from the beginning.

But if something changes in the Epic, someone needs to press the button "Fetch Info from Epic" to update the issue fields.

3) A Combination of this

An automation rule that runs once a night/week and executes this transition on all relevant issues could be a compromise between automation rule executions limit and necessary manual input.

Hope this helps,
Barbara

[Stefan Salzl]

Hi @Barbara Schwarzwald [Decadis AG] ,

awesome answer showing up so many ways that all lead to a quite good solution :)

I just wanted to add that the limit of rule executions is valid for global- and multi-project execution rules. There is no limit for executions for single-project rules.

Best
Stefan

[Luis Dominguez]

thank you Barbara and Stefan, Let me try Stefan's response first. The feature I am asking for is a ok to have but not something we need to invest lots of time and money in.

[Maximilian Köhler]

Hi @Barbara Schwarzwald [Decadis AG]  your solution works great, thank you very much. I will also have to keep an eye out if this will be too demanding on our jira.

However I was not able to use this same rule to update fields in sub-tasks.

Do you have any idea why this didnt work?

[Barbara Schwarzwald [Decadis AG]]

Hi @Maximilian Köhler 

if you want to apply a similar rule, but on the level of subtasks, you need to use a different Branch type (namely "Sub-Tasks" instead of "Stories (or other Issues in Epic)".

If this is not the issue, can you show me a screen shot of your rule and a short "if - then" explanation of what you are trying to accomplish?

Best,
Barbara

[Maximilian Köhler]

I did just that as you can see here 

I tried doing the same but in the same rule as for the "Stories", made no difference. I am also wondering which issue I should copy for the sub-tasks, I think I have tried all variations but the sub-tasks never update when I change values in the Epic.

 

[Barbara Schwarzwald [Decadis AG]]

Hi @Maximilian Köhler ,

i think I have an idea, what could be the issue.

If I understand correctly, you have two rules. One rule as above, that updates the story from the epic and a second one that's supposed to copy from the story level to the sub-tasks below. The first one works, the second doesn't.

This is probably because (by default) rules don't trigger each other. This is to avoid infinite loops or performance issues in general.

You can skip this precaution in a specific rule under rule details and have it triggered by other rules:

Let me know if this solves your issue.

If your problem is instead, that some but not all issues are updated, make sure, that you did not accidently check "Only include issues that have changed since the last time this rule executed" in the Branch options:


Hope this helps,
Barbara

[Maximilian Köhler]

Edit2: So once I unchecked "Only include issues that have changed since the last time this rule executed" for the subtask rule it works.

Edit: Now suddenly it doesn't work anymore, I have to do some more troubleshooting.


Hi @Barbara Schwarzwald [Decadis AG] I kept everything the same, except I did as you said and allowed the substask rule to be triggered by another rule. Also in the subtask rule I set the "Edit Issue" to "Copy FIELD from Trigger Issue", copying from any other Issue doesn't work.

[mfabris]

Hello Luis

For such a thing you might want to invest in a plugin such as scriptrunner or the excellent JWT.

How I would do it:

• first of all, i would create a custom field called "shared information between epic and children" or something like this that makes sense to you
• Then I would create a screen containining only this this screen
• Then I would create in all workflows a transition from any status to itself (basically a button) and link it to the previously created screen
• Then I would add to this transition a postfunction for updating the new information added to this field into the epic or in the child. Using JWT this would be easy: use the postfunction "update issue field" and update the field in the target ticket. Of course you will need a different workflow for the child and for the epic (the child must update the epic and the epic must update the child.).

If you want to change other information (Assignee, developer, project id etc) you can add custom fields to this screen's transition and use similar behaviors.

This is just an idea, I am sure there are better solutions, however I am afraid none with Jira out of the box, you will most probably need a plugin to obtain the results you wish.

I hope this helps

[Girish Shenoy]

You can also try Field Mirror for Jira in Atlassian Marketplace if that helps. https://marketplace.atlassian.com/apps/1230885/field-mirror-for-jira-fmj?hosting=cloud&tab=overview