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Creating issues and sub-tasks

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The building blocks of any project are issues. Issues act as the packets of work that travel through their respective workflows within their projects, until the work is completed. An issue may also have sub-tasks that can be assigned and tracked individually, as well as issue level security to restrict the issue to select members of your team. On this page, you'll learn more about creating and converting issues and sub-tasks, and setting issue level security. If you are looking to import multiple issues (and sub-tasks) using a CSV file, you can find the import process explained in more detail here.

Before you begin

You need the Create Issue project permission for the issue's relevant project.

On this page:

Creating an issue

  1. Click Create at the top of the screen to open the Create Issue dialog box.
  2. Select the relevant Project and Issue Type in the Create Issue dialog box.
  3. Type a Summary for the issue and complete any appropriate fields — at least the required ones that are marked by an asterisk.
    If you want to access fields that are not shown in this dialog box, or you want to hide existing fields:
    1. Click the Configure Fields button at the top right of the screen.
    2. Click Custom and select the fields you want to show or hide by selecting or clearing the relevant check boxes respectively, or click All to show all fields.
      When you next create an issue, these selected fields will be displayed.
  4. Optional: To create a series of similar issues – with the same Project and Issue Type – select the Create another checkbox at the bottom of the dialog. Depending on your configuration and the values you may have specified when creating previous issues, some of the fields in the new Create Issue dialog box may be pre-populated. Make sure you check they're all correct before creating the next issue.
  5. When you are satisfied with the content of your issue, click the Create button.

Cloning an issue

Cloning an issue lets you quickly create a duplicate of an issue within the same project. The cloned issue contains most of the same details stored in the original issue — e.g. Summary, Affects Versions, Components, etc. Other details are not cloned — e.g. Work Log, Comments, Issue history, and Links to Confluence pages. The issue status also returns to the first step of the corresponding workflow, and the resolutions are cleared. The cloned issue can be linked to the original issue, but does not have to be.

  1. Open the issue you wish to clone.
  2. Select More > Clone. The Clone Issue screen will appear.
  3. You can edit the clone issue's Summary if you want.
  4. If applicable to the issue you are cloning, you can also select from these options:
    • Clone sub-tasks to copy existing sub-tasks
    • Clone attachments to add any existing attachments
    • Clone links to add any existing linked issues
    • Clone sprint values to copy across the issue's current and closed sprint values
  5. Click Create.

Creating a sub-task

A sub-task can be created for an issue to either split the issue into smaller chunks, or to allow various aspects of an issue to be assigned to different people. If you find a sub-task is holding up the resolution of an issue, you can convert the sub-task to an issue, to allow it to be worked on independently. If you find an issue is really just a sub-task of a bigger issue, you can also convert an issue to a sub-task.

You can only create sub-tasks if your administrator has enabled sub-tasks, and has added the sub-task issue type to the project's issue type scheme.

  1. Navigate to the issue you would like to be the parent issue of the sub-task you are about to create.
  2. Select More > Create Sub-Task. You will see the Create sub-task screen.
  3. Fill in the details as needed, and then click Create at the bottom of the page.

Note that when you create a sub-task, the following values are inherited from the parent task:

  • project
  • issue security level
  • sprint value, if any (only for JIRA Software issues)

Tip: You can customize the Create sub-task screen to show fields you use most often. To do this, click Configure Fields at the top right corner of the dialog, and use the All and Custom links to switch between the default screen and your custom settings. Your changes are saved for future use.

Converting a sub-task to an issue

  1. Navigate to the sub-task issue you would like convert.
  2. Select More > Convert to Issue.
  3. In the Step 1. Select Issue Type screen, select a new issue type (i.e. a standard issue type) and click Next.
  4. If the sub-task's current status is not an allowed status for the new issue type, the Step 2. Select New Status screen is displayed. Select a new status and click Next.
  5. In the Step 3. Update Fields screen, you will be prompted to enter any additional fields if they are required. Otherwise, you will see the message 'All fields will be updated automatically'. Click Next.
  6. The Step 4. Confirmation screen is displayed. If you are satisfied with the new details for the issue, click Finish.
  7. The issue will be displayed. You will see that it is no longer a sub-task, that is, there is no longer a parent issue number displayed at the top of the screen.

Converting an issue to a sub-task

  1. Navigate to the issue you would like to convert.
  2. Select More > Convert to Sub-Task.
  3. In the Step 1. Select Parent Issue and Sub-Task Type screen, type or select the appropriate parent issue type and the new issue type (i.e. a sub-task issue type). Click Next.
  4. If the issue's current status is not an allowed status for the new issue type, the Step 2. Select New Status screen is displayed. Select a new status and click Next.
  5. In the Step 3. Update Fields screen, you will be prompted to enter any additional fields if they are required. Otherwise, you will see the message 'All fields will be updated automatically'. Click Next.
  6. The Step 4. Confirmation screen is displayed. If you are satisfied with the new details for the issue, click Finish.
  7. The issue will be displayed. You will see that it is now a sub-task, that is, its parent's issue number is now displayed at the top of the screen.

Note: You will not be able to convert an issue to a sub-task if the issue has sub-tasks of its own. You first need to convert the issue's sub-tasks to standalone issues; you can then convert them to sub-tasks of another issue if you wish. Sub-tasks cannot be moved directly from one issue to another — you will need to convert them to standard issues, then to sub-tasks of their new parent issue.

Restricting access to an issue

When creating (or editing) an issue, you can restrict access to that issue to members of your team who are part of a chosen security level. To be able to set the security level for an issue, your administrator must add you to the appropriate issue security level, and also grant you the 'Set Issue Security' permission for the appropriate projects. 

  1. Create/edit the relevant issue.
  2. In the Security Level drop-down field, select the desired security level for the issue. You will only see the security levels you belong to.
  3. Save the issue. It is now only accessible to members of the specified security level.
    Users who are not members of this security level will not be able to access that issue, or see it in any filters, queries, or statistics. 
Last modified on Jul 4, 2018

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