Can Greenhopper automatically update story status based on subtask changes?

Other Questions Jira
1

Automating Story Status in JIRA/Greenhopper

Hey everyone! I’m wondering if there’s a way to make our JIRA/Greenhopper setup smarter. Here’s what I’m trying to do:

  1. When I start working on a subtask and move it to ‘In Progress’, can the main story automatically switch to ‘In Progress’ too?

  2. If I finish all the subtasks in a story, is it possible for the story to close by itself?

It would save a lot of time if we could set this up. Has anyone done something like this before? Any tips or tricks would be super helpful!

Thanks in advance for your input!

2

hey dancingbird, i’ve used zephyr for jira which kinda does wat u want. it can auto-update story status based on test results, but not exactly on subtask changes. might be worth checkin out tho. theres prolly other plugins that could work too. good luck!

3

I’ve implemented a similar automation in our JIRA instance using ScriptRunner. It’s a powerful add-on that allows you to create custom workflows and automation rules. With ScriptRunner, you can set up listeners that trigger when subtask statuses change, automatically updating the parent story status accordingly. For your specific needs, you’d create two rules: one to set the story to ‘In Progress’ when any subtask moves to that status, and another to close the story when all subtasks are completed. It takes some initial setup and Groovy scripting knowledge, but once in place, it’s a huge time-saver. Just be mindful of potential edge cases and test thoroughly before rolling it out to your entire team.

4

I’ve actually tackled this issue at my previous company. We ended up using JIRA Automation, which is a native feature in Jira Cloud and Data Center. It’s pretty straightforward to set up rules that trigger based on subtask status changes.

For your first requirement, we created a rule that checks when any subtask moves to ‘In Progress’. If the parent story isn’t already in that status, it updates it automatically.

For the second part, we set up another rule that fires when the last subtask of a story is completed. It checks if all other subtasks are done, and if so, it transitions the main story to ‘Closed’.

The beauty of this solution is that it doesn’t require any third-party add-ons. It took some fine-tuning to get it right, but once set up, it drastically reduced manual status updates and improved our workflow efficiency. Just make sure to communicate the changes to your team so they understand how the automation works.