Redmine

Background¶

Sub-task as such is a pretty much a complete issue like any other. It has it's own values of each custom fields, states, permissions, authors and so on. Currently the only thing common or linked between the parent task and sub-task are dates, closure etc.

However, when we think of sub-task it's not just-another-work-item; else it would be just another relation. Sub-task should necessarily derive it's properties or workflow from parent task - since it is the parent task which defines the 'larger scope' for all its children.

Some scenarios¶

1. In many cases - for a given issue, there are many custom fields liek customer-representatives, QA specific attributes, project and process specific attributes etc. which should be governed by parent issues.
   • The sub-tasks shouldn't be required to keep copy and updating issues when parent is updated
   • The sub-tasks sometimes shouldn't be allowed to change some of the properties.
2. Many a times, when we are building a feature, some specific use-cases, exceptions keeps arising. In this case, we create a sub-task (not a new task). From the customer/accounting point of view it may be regarded as an 'extra work' but from release or QA point of view the patch for the full parent issue inclusive of all sub-tasks is single. In such cases many feature specific custom field should be simply 'as per parent'
3. Another example, if the parent feature is 'client approved' the sub-tasks should also get 'client approved'

Currently the shortcut is to 'copy' a task straight away to preserve the values but when the same values change on the parent task - the sub tasks should reflect the same.

Approaches¶

Given this principle, we should be able to define specific behaviors:

1. The target version should get directly linked to sub-task assuming both the sub-task and parent tasks are expected to be finished together.
2. Custom fields of issues can have a properties as 'derive from parent'. Hence they can be automatically linked from parent tasks.
3. Alternatively, in the "New issue"/"Update" form, the custom fields (even if mandatory) can have option called 'Follow parent' option which will follow value of parent as applicable. This way, specific properties can be linked to parent without any standard template.
4. Specific State transition in workflow can have a flag <move sub-task along> which will reflect the corresponding states of the issues as well.
5. Alternatively, when parent's status is changed, additional drop-down of child's status can be selected or can be kept unchanged if no change is more appropriate.
6. Closure should be completely linked
7. %done of the parent task can be directly derived from the sub-tasks.

There is no assumption that parent task and sub-task are of the same tracker - hence this overlap only applies to states and custom fields which overlaps in the respective trackers.

What do you people think about it?