Can I update a field in subtask B based off of a status update in subtask A?
Asked by Abby Domanowski:

Hi all,

We have a documentation team that is looking to automate the creation of some subtasks for documentation work related to product development.

In our current process, we have a single parent ticket (likely a story, but could be a task) for a documentation work item. When that parent ticket transitions to *Review* status, we have an automation rule to create 3 review subtasks: SME review, Peer review, and QE review. This rule works well. However, with this team's process, QE review cannot occur until after Peer review is complete. Therefore, we are hoping to create another automation rule that will set field *Ready* to value *True* on the QE review task when the Peer review task is transitioned to *Closed* (to indicate to QE that they can perform their review). We need this to be dynamic (and not tied to a specific issue key), and I have been unable to find a way to execute this action via automation rules. Do you know if there is an automation rule that can accomplish this?

If not, do you have an idea for a workaround? The only one I was thinking is that in the first rule, I could create only 2 review subtasks: SME review and Peer review. Then, when Peer review closed, theoretically I could create another subtask for QE review. Would that be a viable possibility?

Thanks!


Answers:
author: JD
body: Hi [@Abby Domanowski](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/4468618)

You can use a branch rule/related issue to get this rule to work.

![Screen Shot 2021-07-08 at 9.25.54 am.png](https://community.atlassian.com/t5/image/serverpage/image-id/150481i90F3DCE2789CBB87/image-dimensions/258x202?v=v2 "Screen Shot 2021-07-08 at 9.25.54 am.png")

In this I've assumed that your subtasks are always called "SME review", "Peer review" and "QE Review". The third issue condition will only let the automation run if it is the sub-task named "Peer review".

For the branch rule/related issue you can use a JQL search and a smart value.

Parent = {{issue.parent.key}}

Just incase you didn't know: smart values are variables. They allow you to pass and manipulate information from other components. In this case the trigger is an issue so the smart value {{issue.parent.key}} will find the produce the issue key of the parent issue. ([learn more](https://support.atlassian.com/jira-software-cloud/docs/what-are-smart-values/))

A branch allows you to repeat actions and conditions for a certain type of relationship or list. In this case it will repeat for every child of the {{issue.parent.key}}. The next condition only allows the branch to perform the action if the issue summary = "QE review".

Hope that helps!

Also I recently answered a similar question where a someone wanted a subtask to be created after certain subtasks were competed. It is a variation on what you're doing above but thought you might be interested <https://community.atlassian.com/t5/Jira-Software-questions/How-to-trigger-creation-of-a-subtask-when-all-other-custom/qaq-p/1740445>

Thanks,

John

comments: author: Abby Domanowski
body: John,

THANK YOU! I had the exact same rule built out as you have above except I could not figure out the smart value to use... I had tried using issue functions (but I don't think they're available to use within project automation), and your smart value is exactly what I was looking for.

This rule is now working exactly as I need it to!

Thanks again,

Abby


Tags: cloud