Is it possible to automate the cloning of tickets in Jira?

[Vinicius Medina]

Hi, I'm quite new to Jira so I'm still not sure what is possible or not possible to do.

Here it is:

I'm controlling deployment of features based on tickets on my environments. For each environment I have separate Parent Ticket to add all sub-tasks for that specific environment.

Let's use following example: I have deployment1 sub-task in Parent Ticket A. After its deployment is completed, I have to deploy to my other environments, to do so I have to:

1. Clone deployment1 sub-task

2. Move to Parent Ticket B

3. Update Environment field in new deployment1 sub-task to Environment B

The problem is:

Everytime I have a deployment in Environment A, I have to clone sub-tasks to my other Environments B, C and D. Sometimes there are several deployment on the same day in ENV A. It means a lot of work to clone, move and update env field for other 3 ENVS.

Question is:

Is there a way I can automate this process of: cloning, changing Parent Ticket and updating ENV field?

Additional info:

I'm a simple Jira user, not administrator.

Using Jira v9.4.14

Thanks in advance!

[Trudy Claspill · Accepted solution]

Hello @Vinicius Medina 

Welcome to the Atlassian community.

Are these parent tickets to which you want to clone subtasks in the same project?

Are you a Project Administrator for that project?

Are you using Jira Server or Jira Data Center?

[Vinicius Medina]

I'm not JIRA admin. I mean, I think I have full access on this specific project (I can delete tickets for instance).

They are in the same project.

Are you using Jira Server or Jira Data Center? - I'm not sure, started using JIRA some months ago.

[Trudy Claspill]

You can ask your Jira Administrators if you are using Server or Data Center.

With Data Center the Automation feature is automatically installed. With Server a less-featured version of the Automation tool can be installed manually by the Administrators.

If are a Project Administrator and if the Jira Administrators have enabled your access, you can find the Automation feature by going to Project Settings. It would be listed among the other options available there.

If you are not a Project Administrator, start by contacting your Project Administrator to ask if they can help you create the Automation rule.

If you are a Project Administrator but don't find the option there, you will have to contact your Jira Administrators for assistance.

We can explain here the automation steps for you to use (if you have sufficient permissions) or for you to pass on to an administrator that does have permission.

How do you currently identify the specific "Parent Ticket B" into which the subtask should be cloned?

[Vinicius Medina]

Hi, I found the 'Automation' option and I can see my project there, but seems I don't have acces for create the rules: 'You do not have permission to manage rules, contact your site admin to request acces'.

So let me explain in detail what I do manually.

The deployment is controlled by tickets as I mentioned and for each ENVIRONMENT I have one PARENT TICKET.
But those PARENT TCIKETS change based on the current UPGRADE we are on. So we have the following example:

PARENT TICKET - ENV A - UPGRADE 1
- deployment sub-tasks for ENV A - UPGRADE 1

PARENT TICKET - ENV B - UPGRADE 1
- deployment sub-tasks for ENV B - UPGRADE 1 (cloned from ENV A sub-task)

PARENT TICKET - ENV C - UPGRADE 1
- deployment sub-tasks for ENV C - UPGRADE 1 (cloned from ENV A sub-task)

After some time, we deploy UPGRADE 2. This means I will create new PARENT TICKET as below:

PARENT TICKET - ENV A - UPGRADE 2
- deployment sub-tasks for ENV A - UPGRADE 2

PARENT TICKET - ENV B - UPGRADE 2
- deployment sub-tasks for ENV B - UPGRADE 2 (cloned from ENV A sub-task)

PARENT TICKET - ENV C - UPGRADE 2
- deployment sub-tasks for ENV B - UPGRADE 2 (cloned from ENV A sub-task)

So this means that my PARENT TICKETS are not static and I will have to update the rule from time to time based on my needs.

My idea of automation would be:

1. I go to one of my sub-tasks in PARENT TICKET - ENV A
2. "Click in one button"
3. Automation will clone this sub-task, move to PARENT TICKETS ENV B and C, update ENVIRONMENT FIELD to ENV B and C.

In my mind, whenever I have a new PARENT TICKET UPGRADE, I just need to update the parameters (parent ticket ID, maybe) in this rule. That's my understanding at least.

[Trudy Claspill]

In your original post you talked about cloning the deployment subtask in A when the deployment was completed (when the deployment subtask in A transitions to a "done" status?), and putting the new subtask(s) under additional existing Parents.

In your last response you talked about creating new Parent issues for a new Upgrade, but cloning the previous Upgrade's Parent issue, plus cloning the subtasks.

These are two very different requirements that would require very different automation rules.

Which one do you want to focus on?

[Vinicius Medina]

All parent tickets will be created manually. This is not an issue.

But all sub-tasks from PARENT TICKET A, (does not matter which UPGRADE it is) I need to clone and change the mentioned fields to PARENT TICKETS B and C.

I just mentioned about UPGRADES to make it clear that those PARENT TICKETS will not be static and I will have to create new ones from time o time.

NOTE: I cannot wait until UPGRADE 1 is completed to clone whole PARENT TICKET A + sub-tasks to PARENTS B and C. Because as soon as the deployment happens, they have to be deployed on those others evironments too.

[Trudy Claspill]

Hello @Vinicius Medina 

It is possible to clone a set of subtasks in parent issue A and then move those subtasks to new parent issue B.

Another person figured out how to do it, but did not include the details of all the steps. See the Answer on this post.

https://community.atlassian.com/t5/Jira-Service-Management/Automation-to-Clone-Sub-Tasks-from-a-Ticket-into-another-one/qaq-p/2359219

The cloning of the subtasks is relatively easy.

Trigger: Manual
Condition: Issue Field Condition
  Field: Issue Tyepe
  Condition: is not one of
  Values: Epic, <subtask issue types>
Branch: For Related Issues / Subtasks
  Action: Clone issue

That by itself is enough to create a clone of each subtask under A.

The next trick is moving the newly created clone to parent issue B.

I think what I would do is add a Label to the subtask when I clone it, such as "move-to-B".

Then I would have a separate rule to move the subtask from A to B.

Trigger: Issue Created
Condition: Issue Field Condition
  Field: Issue Type
  Condition: equals
  Value: <subtask issue type>
Condition: Issue Field Condition
  Field: Labels
  Condition: is one of
  Value: "move-to-B"
Action: Edit Issue
  Field to edit: Labels
    <remove label "move-to-B">
 ... and then I think you need to use the Advanced Editing with JSON option to change the parent field from issue A to issue B.

I don't have a Jira Data Center instance at the moment where I can actually work through the steps to get all the details, but the above is an outline.

There will need to be some what to identify the new parent issue. Is it linked to A?

[Vinicius Medina]

Hi @Trudy Claspill , I'm sorry for my late reply and thanks a lot for the feedback.

Answering your last question, yes.

How it is done, I will create

PARENT TICKET - ENV A - UPGRADE 1

PARENT TICKET - ENV B - UPGRADE 1

After UPGRADE 1 is completed, I will simply clone those above PARENT TICKETS as below:

PARENT TICKET - ENV A - UPGRADE 2 (cloned from PARENT TICKET - ENV A - UPGRADE 1)

PARENT TICKET - ENV B - UPGRADE 2 (cloned from PARENT TICKET - ENV B - UPGRADE 1)

I will try to play around with the instructions you provided.

[Harsh]

Hi @Vinicius Medina 

Welcome to the community. 

Are Environment A and B different projects or you want to create the parent and cloned subtasks in the same project? 

You can try using automation to achieve this. But for that a proper flow should be there. 

[Vinicius Medina]

Hi, thanks for the reply!

Yes, all parents and subtasks are for the same project.

[Harsh]

Hi @Vinicius Medina 

That is good then, you can use automation, it is in built. To navigation -> Project Settings - > Automation(on the left side).

Hope this helps. 

[Vinicius Medina]

I found the option, I will take a look on this. Thanks a lot!

[Carla Ann Rowland]

Hi Vinicius:

You can automate this in a datacenter. 

One question are all these clones in the same data center project? 

Once you answer I will expand on my proposed solution.

Note: if these clone tickets are in different jira projects you will need the assistance of the JIRA instance administrator to create a multiple project automation.

[Vinicius Medina]

They are in same project.

[Carla Ann Rowland]

Hi, thank you for answering so quickly and I saw your post of your manual steps: 

Hi, I found the 'Automation' option and I can see my project there, but seems I don't have acces for create the rules: 'You do not have permission to manage rules, contact your site admin to request acces'.

So let me explain in detail what I do manually.

The deployment is controlled by tickets as I mentioned and for each ENVIRONMENT I have one PARENT TICKET.
But those PARENT TCIKETS change based on the current UPGRADE we are on. So we have the following example:

PARENT TICKET - ENV A - UPGRADE 1
- deployment sub-tasks for ENV A - UPGRADE 1

PARENT TICKET - ENV B - UPGRADE 1
- deployment sub-tasks for ENV B - UPGRADE 1 (cloned from ENV A sub-task)

PARENT TICKET - ENV C - UPGRADE 1
- deployment sub-tasks for ENV C - UPGRADE 1 (cloned from ENV A sub-task)

After some time, we deploy UPGRADE 2. This means I will create new PARENT TICKET as below:

PARENT TICKET - ENV A - UPGRADE 2
- deployment sub-tasks for ENV A - UPGRADE 2

PARENT TICKET - ENV B - UPGRADE 2
- deployment sub-tasks for ENV B - UPGRADE 2 (cloned from ENV A sub-task)

PARENT TICKET - ENV C - UPGRADE 2
- deployment sub-tasks for ENV B - UPGRADE 2 (cloned from ENV A sub-task)

So this means that my PARENT TICKETS are not static and I will have to update the rule from time to time based on my needs.

My idea of automation would be:

1. I go to one of my sub-tasks in PARENT TICKET - ENV A
2. "Click in one button"
3. Automation will clone this sub-task, move to PARENT TICKETS ENV B and C, update ENVIRONMENT FIELD to ENV B and C.

In my mind, whenever I have a new PARENT TICKET UPGRADE, I just need to update the parameters (parent ticket ID, maybe) in this rule. That's my understanding at least.

_____

The challenge you can clone the parent but you cannot automatically clone the sub-tasks. So to accomplish this without a script would be a challenge. I recommend that the Parent cloning can be automatically triggered provided that the summary always contains Upgrade. 

I need to think on how to handle the sub-tasks with out just doing a manual clone and move them ---that is a challenge part 2

[Vinicius Medina]

Actually cloning the PARENT TICKET is not an issue since it's very simple and only be 2 (PARENT B and C) per UPGRADE.

The real issue are the sub-tasks from PARENT TICKET A. In a month sometime I have 30+ deployments. Which means manually cloning those 30+ sub-tasks on PARENT TICKETS B and C.

[Santino Lucca Castrataro]

Hi @Vinicius Medina! Welcome to the Atlassian Community! 

Of course you can automate that! To do so, you should use "Automations".

There you have the options to clone issues, change fields value and the Parent Ticket as well. 

I suggest you to search and learn more about automation and try building it there.

If you have any doubts about how automation works, let me know!

[Vinicius Medina]

Thank you!

This 'Automations' is something build in JIRA? How can I found in my project.

Sorry for obvious questions, I'm very new to this tool.

[Santino Lucca Castrataro]

Sure! You can see the "Automation" section going to Project Setting > Automation!