Subtasks in Jira: Simple guide + practical implementation

Updated on February 28, 2024

Are your projects in Jira overwhelming? Are you drowning in complex projects with endless to-dos? Well, there is a solution –  subtasks in Jira. 

In this article, we will explore the fundamentals of Jira subtasks. We introduce what they are, and how to create them, as well as practical implementations.

Subtasks in Jira are small parts of work separated from larger tasks. They act as child tasks within a parent task. They enable you to deconstruct a complex project into a more manageable one.

Think of it this way: a big project is like building a house. The “primary task” is the construction of the entire house. “Subtasks” may be individual stages, such as laying foundations, framing walls, or installing a roof. Each subtask contributes to the project, but it is easier to manage them individually.

It’s important to understand the difference between task and subtask.

Tasks:

Subtasks:

To cater to different project needs you may need to use various elements. In the context of improving the management of complex projects, Jira offers:

Here’s how subtasks can help you with complex project management:

The heart of subtasks is their ability to break large tasks into smaller pieces. They let you approach projects with clarity and focus. What’s more, your team conquers smaller milestones, boosting morale and motivation.

You can easily track the status of individual steps within a larger task. As a result, it is easier to identify potential bottlenecks.

By assigning subtasks to specific team members, you can monitor progress at a lower level. When needed, you may reallocate resources or provide other actions.

When using subtasks, you can create dependencies between different steps, ensuring tasks are completed in the correct order. Additionally, you may move and reorganize them within the parent task. It allows adjustments to fit project needs as they evolve.

Knowing when to use subtasks, checklists or separate issues is crucial for optimal project management. Here is a quick view on that topic:

Subtasks can only be created when your administrator has enabled them and added the subtask issue type to the project’s issue type scheme.

💡Creating a subtask inherits the parent task’s values:

As an administrator, you can control the behavior of subtasks via project settings:

Handling onboarding processes with more and more employees can be challenging.

And it happened to us as our team grew.

Every month, we needed to create several big bunch of identical issues assigned to different people.

At some point, we decided to automate the whole process of onboarding new employees.

To do that, we needed to implement a new hire workflow that would automatically create several specific sub-tasks with different assignees, descriptions, summaries, and other fields.

We use Issue Templates for Jira app which lets us create templates for repetitive tasks.

This way, we don’t have to spend so much time on creating the issue. For standard tasks, we prepared issue templates with autocompleted fields. However, onboarding demanded a completely new approach.

Why use a template?

Creating individual onboarding tasks for each new employee can be time-consuming. A predefined template helps you:

To streamline our onboarding workflow, we needed a template that automatically adds all the sub-tasks to a parent issue whenever a new employee is hired.

Here’s what we did:

Now let’s take a closer look at how to make it work.

In our Cloud instance, we only needed to follow 3 simple steps to configure a template with subtasks.

Now, every time we hire someone new, we only need to choose Create from Template from the side menu to easily create a new issue with automatically copied sub-tasks.

We’ve included assignee information for both parent and sub-tasks. Additionally, we’ve automated the creation of user accounts on the corporate LDAP server for new hires, incorporating them into Active Directory groups and updating their attributes using the Active Directory Attributes Sync app.

To display the AD attributes on the issue view, we created a dedicated custom field from the app in the Jira Administration panel and chose the appropriate fields to display. Then, we went back to the Workflows in Project Settings and added another post function, this time to update data on creating transition in AD.

The next time we hire a new employee, all we need to do is create a new issue from the template. We can be sure that all sub-tasks will be copied exactly as we defined them.

As a result, the whole onboarding process takes no longer than 10 seconds. 

Knowing how to leverage subtasks in Jira lets you simplify complex projects. By breaking down tasks into manageable steps, you gain clarity, focus, and control over your work. As a result, it leads to efficient collaboration and successful project outcomes.