Automatically Remove a Closed Epic from the Backlog

Owned by ITOPS Notify
Last updated: Jan 13, 2023 by Deborah Scott
2 min read

 

JSU for Jira Server/Data Center

This is the documentation of JSU for Jira Server/Data Center. If you are using JSU on Jira Cloud, see our JSU Cloud documentation.

Goal

Get a clear view of your team’s backlog

Scenario

Do your epics stay in the backlog of your Jira agile board after closing them? Here's why.

Besides the workflow status, epics have an additional field called epic status which is only accessible on the Backlog screen. Only epics with the Epic status field marked as DONE get removed from the backlog.

Let's have a look at how this can be automated using JSU

Components

 

Jira Backlog showing the Mark as Done confirmation window.

How to configure this rule

  1. Go to Project Settings > Workflows and click Edit for the required workflow.

  2. Choose the transition where you want to perform your post function. In this case, we choose the transition to DONE.

  3. Select the Post Functions tab and click Add post function.

  4. Select the Update any Issue Field (JSU) post function, then click Add.

  5. Because we want this post function to perform only for epics, we will need to configure a precondition. Therefore, we set the precondition to be true at the beginning of the post function configuration.

  6. In this transition, you want to have your epic status updated to done.

    1. Select Within same Issue for the issue relation.

    2. Select Epic Status for the Issue Field.

      Configuration options for the Update Any Issue Field post function.

       

  7. Click Add at the bottom of the page.

  8. Now it's time to create your precondition to prevent errors when the workflow is used for non-epic issues. Click Add post function, select Precondition: Value Field (JSU) then click Add.

  9. Configure your precondition by choosing Issue type = Epic and make sure the comparison type is String. Click Add.

  10. Publish your workflow.

  11. Now check what you have achieved with JSU. Your epic is currently visible on the backlog. Move your epic to done and go back to your backlog. Your epic doesn't show up anymore!

This was only a bit of JSU in action. See our app documentation for some more examples and configuration screenshots.