Setting up automation rules in Jira to update a parent issue's status based on its child issues' statuses is an effective strategy for maintaining project organization and ensuring accurate high-level reporting.

Four automation rules are established to run every morning before 7am, targeting Initiatives and Epics that are not closed. These rules are designed to update the parent issue to TO DO, IN PROGRESS, or DONE based on the collective status of all child issues.

Additionally, a Power BI report for Ferguson IT Leadership, which includes all Initiatives and Epics not in a 'Closed' status, is updated daily to reflect these changes. This approach not only streamlines the workload for Project Admins/Leads but also ensures that project statuses are accurately reflected in reports.

Automation Rules

There are 4 automation rules that will run every week for your project:

1. TO DO

   1. Trigger - Scheduled every week. Time may be different depending on project but will be before 7am. It will query for project category and issuetype (Initiative, Epic) in order to reduce the number of issues it targets.

   2. Condition 1 - For each Initiative and Epic it will look at all child issues and determine if ALL Child are in TO DO status category

   3. Condition 2 - Checks if the Initiative or Epic and will determine if that issue is NOT in TO DO status category

   4. Action - If both conditions are True, the Initiative or Epic will be updated to TO DO.

2. IN PROGRESS

   1. Trigger - Scheduled every week. Time may be different depending on project but will be before 7am. It will query for project category and issuetype (Initiative, Epic) in order to reduce the number of issues it targets.

   2. Condition 1 - For each Initiative and Epic it will look at all child issues and determine if ANY Child are in IN PROGRESS status category

   3. Condition 2 - Checks if the Initiative or Epic and will determine if that issue is NOT in IN PROGRESS status category

   4. Action - If both conditions are True, the Initiative or Epic will be updated to IN PROGRESS.

3. DONE

   1. Trigger - Scheduled every week. Time may be different depending on project but will be before 7am. It will query for project category and issuetype (Initiative, Epic) in order to reduce the number of issues it targets.

   2. Condition 1 - For each Initiative and Epic it will look at all child issues and determine if ALL Child are in DONE status category

   3. Condition 2 - Checks if the Initiative or Epic and will determine if that issue is NOT in DONE status category

   4. Action - If both conditions are True, the Initiative or Epic will be updated to DONE.

4. Mixed statuses of TO DO and DONE

   1. Trigger - Scheduled every {interval}. Time may be different depending on project but will be before 7am. It will query for project category and issuetype (Initiative, Epic) in order to reduce the number of issues it targets.

   2. Condition 1 - For each Initiative and Epic it will look at all child issues and determine if ALL Child are NOT in IN PROGRESS status category

   3. Condition 2 - Checks if the Initiative or Epic meets the following JQL - "Percent Complete (Issue Count)" !~ 100 and statuscategory != "To Do"

   4. Action - If both conditions are True, the Initiative or Epic will be updated to TO DO.