Summary

Here are a few pointers one has to remember when using automation for Jira to branch into Epic's parent issue. The Issue Hierarchy now allows Jira admins to have issue types above Epic as parents.

• There is no direct way to find the parent of an EPIC in Automation for Jira because the "Branching" component doesn't give any option to define the Parent of the Epic issue type.
• The only possible options that we get in branching are "Stories" the parent of Sub-task or "Epic" which is a parent of a Story/standard issue type. However, we don't find an option that says "Epic's Parent" or Just "Parent".

Environment

.
Jira cloud - Automation for Jira.

Cause

The feature isn't available at the moment.

Solution

For Example, The automation would trigger due to an action on the Epic.

• Add a Branch in the automation rule where JQL would find all the parents of the Trigger issue (Epic). The JQL is given below:

     key = {{issue.parent}}

• Then if the user wants to sum up all the values from a field called "Budget" and add them to the "Budget" field in the Parent issue of the Epic (Eg: Initiative) we follow the below steps.
• Add a lookupIssues component to find all the Epic issues which have the above parent in their "Parent link" field. The JQL is given below:
• In the first step as we branched into the Epic's Parent (Initiative) using JQL, the control of the rule is now at the Parent level. Hence issue.key for "parent link" field would return the Epics under it.

    issuetype = Epic AND "parent link" = {{issue.key}}

• Then, Edit the Parent's field "Budget" with the Sum of all the values in its child Epics.

    {{lookupIssues.customfield_1000X0.sum.round}}