In this article:
1. How to Create the Rule?
2. How to Set Up and Enable the Rule?
3. Practical Examples of Using the 'Child Card is Moved' Rule
This Business rule will automatically move a parent card to a specified column/lane when any of its child cards are moved to a predefined set of columns/swimlanes. A typical example would be to move a parent card to "In Progress" when any of its children are moved to “In Progress.”
1. How to Create the Rule?
Only users with "Account Owners" or "Manage Business Rules" privileges can create business rules.
To configure the business rule, please go to the Administration panel at the top right side of your screen → open the Business rule tab → select the "Child Card is Moved" rule option.
Note: In case there is a set of already defined rules to your account → use the Add new rule button at the upper right side of the panel.
2. How to Set Up and Enable the Rule?
The "Child Card is moved" configuration panel has the following fields and properties:
(1) Name — give a name of the rule to distinguish it.
(2) Description — provide a description of the rule behavior in the system.
Note: when a business rule is created, it will get a rule ID and will be made available in the Business rule panel under name and description.
PRO tip: You can specify the board name in the rule name in order to easily distinguish rules configured for each of your boards.
(3) Share with — this option allows you to share the rule with other users in the system so that they can edit/disable/enable the rule.
All business rules have three main control settings: When; And; Then.
It is a sort of "point-and-click" programming language with which you can automate any process. The way it works is based on the programming conditional statement "if this, then that."
To save/enable a rule, click on the Save button at the lower right corner of the configuration panel.
(4) WHEN — "Child card is moved" is the event that will trigger an action.
(5) AND — define the filters and select the conditions under which the actions should be triggered.
- The "Position is/is not" filter is а mandatory field for this rule. Select a board from the dropdown list and from the minimap board select the column/cell (for example: In progress) where the child card is to be moved.
Note: You can use "or" to add extra boards and optimize the scope of the rule. Use the delete sign to remove a board. - Use "Add new property" to further configure the automation. Select a regular or custom field from the panel (for example Tag is: set it up).
(6) THEN
Here you have two main options:
(1) You can update the parent card with a predefined action when the child moves to a certain position on the board.
(2) You can move the parent card when triggered by a move of the child card. To define the position where the parent card is to be moved, click on Choose where to move, and select the board and position from the board minimap (you can select a cell or an entire column/swimlane by clicking on its name).
In addition, for cases where you have more than 2 parent cards linked to the child, you can create a filter that specifies where to move each parent card separately. To define where multiple parent cards should be moved to, all you have to do is click Add a new move action and then create a specific filter (e.g. board, workflow, swimlane, etc.) for it.
As a result, every time a child card on Board X is moved to In progress → the parent card on Board Y will be automatically moved to In progress.
Please, read more about parent/child links and how to create them.
3. Practical Examples of Using the 'Child Card is Moved' Rule
This rule comes in handy for complex board layouts and multiple-step workflows where you would like to further automate the movement of linked cards.
Example: This rule can be used whenever you would like a parent initiative card to be moved when only one of its child cards is in a specific column from the "In Progress" stage.
Note: By default, initiatives are automatically moved based on the movement of their linked child cards.
When a linked child card is moved from "Requested" to "In Progress", the initiative will be automatically placed in the first "In Progress" column. If you have multiple custom columns in the "In Progress" stage and you would like to move the initiative to a specific one, you would need to set up a business rule to achieve this.
Scenario: There are 3 steps (columns) in the "In Progress" stage of the Initiatives Workflow: Development, Testing, and Implementation. The image below shows how you can configure the initiative to be moved to one of the other custom columns:
Before the Rule:
After the rule:
Note that you would need to set up two rules for this scenario. One where moving the position of the child card to the Testing column (Cards Workflow) will also move the parent card to the Testing column (Initiatives Column), and another rule for moving the cards to the Implementation columns.
The rule setup will look like this:
If you want to move the parent card when ALL children are moved, check out the "All Children are Moved" Business Rule.