Question Automation to restrict epic from transitioning to 'done' in Automation questions

Automation to restrict epic from transitioning to 'done'

Mohsin Khan — Wed, 10 Dec 2025 14:23:28 GMT

Team,

My use case is that I do not want users to be able to close an epic (change status category to 'Done') if it has any open (status category != done) child issues. Basically I want to restrict users from closing an epic unless all child issues are closed. I tried taking help from ROVO AI but the automation does not work. Can you please help?

Re: Automation to restrict epic from transitioning to 'done'

Mikael Sandberg — Wed, 10 Dec 2025 14:42:37 GMT

Hi @Mohsin Khan

Welcome to Atlassian Community!

Automations run after an action happens to the work item, and would not be able to prevent your epic to transition to done if child issues are still open. You would need an app from the Marketplace that extends the rules, one example is JMWE that has a rule that would allow you to prevent the transition on the epic if linked work items are not in the right status. There are other apps that can do this too.

Re: Automation to restrict epic from transitioning to 'done'

Staffan Redelius — Wed, 10 Dec 2025 15:32:36 GMT

Hi @Mohsin Khan

There is a way to do this with automation

Create a automation that looks like this:

This requires you to have a backloop from "Done" to "In progress" in the workflow.

You might also want to send a message to he user who trigged the rule otherwise they might get confused why the Epic popped back to In progress.

Might not be the prettiest but gives you some ideas to continue to explore

Best regards,
/Staffan

Re: Re: Automation to restrict epic from transitioning to...

Bill Sheboy — Thu, 18 Dec 2025 21:10:17 GMT

Hi @Mohsin Khan -- Welcome to the Atlassian Community!

Just following up to check if Mikael's suggestions answered your question. If so, please consider marking this one as "answered". That will help others with a similar need find solutions faster. If not, please let the community know what help you need.

Thanks, and kind regards,
Bill

Re: Re: Automation to restrict epic from transitioning to...

Mohsin Khan — Fri, 19 Dec 2025 05:28:00 GMT

Thanks for the suggestion. This has few limitations though, as I want a message to be displayed. I am thinking of an alternate but not sure if it will work. Once I try, I will share the success / failure story here:

1. Create custom field: called 'Are child issues closed?" that checks if all child issues are closed then autofills as 'yes'. If not, then it remains empty

2. Create a workflow transition rule that doesn't allow user to move to transition 'done' if the custom field value is empty.

If anyone feels there's a better way to achieve this OR if this wont work, please comment