Automation for Child Tickets' status to be copied by the Parent Ticket
Asked by Lee Azahar:

I am seeking assistance or ideas for setting up an automation that synchronizes the status of a parent ticket with its linked child tickets. Here's the envisioned process:

1. When a child ticket linked to the parent ticket transitions from "Done" to "In Progress" in Project XYZ,
2. The automation would automatically adjust the parent ticket's status to match the updated status of the child ticket.

I have attached to what I tried to do, but the automation hasn't run or has failed - any help on this, is appreciated! ![Screenshot 2024-02-26 at 16.15.15.png](https://community.atlassian.com/t5/image/serverpage/image-id/308697i0F26B7FBA6DBF9BE/image-size/large?v=v2&px=999 "Screenshot 2024-02-26 at 16.15.15.png")


Answers:
author: Bill Sheboy
body: Hi [@Lee Azahar](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/5438855) -- Welcome to the Atlassian Community!

First thing, are you trying to perform this status change for Epics and their child issues, Stories and Sub-task, both, or something else?

Next, your rule does not match what you described:

* Description indicates: when a child issues moves from Done to In Progress, update the parent to match
* But the rule checks for an issue transited to Done, and then tries to update the parent to also transition to Done

Please clarify what you are trying to achieve.

Finally, you note your rule has failed or has not run. Would you please post an image showing the audit log details? That may help to diagnose this further.

Kind regards,  
Bill

comments: author: Lee Azahar
body: Hey [@Bill Sheboy](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/1685313) - thanks for your response! I highly appreciate.

Apologies for the vague description of what I am trying to achieve here:

* Yes, I am trying to use automation to change the status of the parent tickets when a user changes the status of the child tickets
* So, when any child tickets statuses transition from X to Y, I would want an automation where the parent ticket automatically copies the status of the child tickets.

I have now made some changes to my automation here, and I have attached the error:

![Screenshot 2024-02-27 at 09.01.38.png](https://community.atlassian.com/t5/image/serverpage/image-id/308853iDA2F0F2E14F0998D/image-size/large?v=v2&px=999 "Screenshot 2024-02-27 at 09.01.38.png")![Screenshot 2024-02-27 at 09.02.19.png](https://community.atlassian.com/t5/image/serverpage/image-id/308854i2297A4962DB8EA90/image-size/large?v=v2&px=999 "Screenshot 2024-02-27 at 09.02.19.png")


author: Bill Sheboy
body: Thanks for clarifying, and looking at your revised rule, I note:

That error message is likely caused by the different issues (parent and child) have different workflows with different status values. For the issues shown in the log, have you checked their workflows are aligned for the status values: ITSUPPORT-40 and ITSUPPORT-41?

Next, what is the purpose of the condition on the status of the Child issues of the parent? There are so many different status values being tested (in the trigger and the condition), I wonder if it can do as you expected.

For example, a common use case is "when a child issue moves to 'Done' and all other sibling issues are also 'Done' then move the parent to 'Done' also". That is quite specific, but your rule seems to allow many possible update paths of the parent.

Finally, for a rule like this you may not want unnecessary updates of the parent issue if it is already in a status. Again noting how many status values are checked that would not appear to be possible without adding another condition to your rule before the transition.