Can I set an automation based on the status or Workflow of an Epic?

[Quinn Campbell]

excuse me as I am a novice. I am just starting to test the use of epics (rather then just tasks and subtask) to help recognize a board I've created for onboarding new staff. Previously on my board I had new staff set as task, that would go through a series of status (before first day, first day, first week, etc) and had automated each status to automatically transition based on start date and with that transition a series of subtasks would be assigned. 

I am now trying to reconfigure my board to have the new staff as an Epic with each staff assigned to a variety of task set as tasks, with their todos as subtasks. 

I've figured out the Epic creation, tasks/sub task group assignment. 

The roadblock I seem to be at is that Epics can't have a status besides todo, in progress, done, so I don't know

1. how to trigger the tasks at different timing markers (before 1st day, first day, first week)

2. How to automate the Epic transition between statues or workflows.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

[Sumukh Shashidhar · Accepted solution]

Hi @Quinn Campbell , 

Customize the Epic Workflow: -
you can edit your Epic workflow (just like tasks) and add your own statuses:
1. Go to Project Settings > Workflows
2. Find the Epic Issue Type workflow
3. Add custom statuses like Before First Day, Fist Day, First Week, etc.
4. Publish the workflow
Now your Epics can move through onboarding phases just like tasks used to.

Keep Epic Simple, Trigger from Date Fields: -
If you prefer to keep Epic Statuses simple but still trigger subtasks based on timing (e.g., “First Day"), you can:
1. Add a custom date field (e.g., "Start date") to the Epic

2. Create an automation rule that runs daily and checks:

• if Start Date = now + 0 days - Create Tasks or Transition them
• if Start Date = now + 7 days - Assign next-week Tasks

This way, you don’t need complex Epic Status transitions - just smart automation login based on date.

[Quinn Campbell]

Hi Sumukh, 

Thanks for the response. So I was previously able to find the epic workflow area, and created/relabeled the status to what I wanted (before 1st day, 1st day, 1st week, etc), but initially those weren't available in my transition rule making before, but they are now. Not sure if it takes a while for Jira to percolate through, but my problem is solved now. 

I appreciate the response. 

[Dilip · Accepted solution]

Hi @Quinn Campbell 

Yes you can, just use the work item transition as a trigger for you automation rule.

[Trudy Claspill]

Hello @Quinn Campbell 

Actually Epics can have customized statuses, just like tasks and subtasks. You customize the workflow for the Epic in the same way that you customized the workflow for the tasks and subtasks.

Having said that, the exact steps depend on the project type you are using. What project type are you using? Get that information from the Type column on the View All Projects page under the Projects menu.

To address your two questions we would need to know more about your work items types and the data they contain.

For #1, how are you annotating what is the 1st day date? In which work item is that noted? What do you actually want to have the automation rule do? 

You can create Scheduled automation rules where the triggered defines how frequently the rule runs and selects work items to operate against based on a work item filter. So, for instance you could create a rule scheduled to run once per day that selects the work items where "1st day" is today or tomorrow, or some number of days from now. For each issue found by that filter you can then execute actions that you specify in the rule.

For #2 we need more information about your scenario. What is the event that should cause the Epic to change to a new Status?

On a side note, if you are new to using Jira you may want to take advantage of the free, on-demand training available from the Community Learning area. You can find a link to that at the top of the Community pages. There are courses on a variety of topics including Automation Rules.