Have a subtask or issue inherit the same value from a custom field as the parent task

[MelissaDa]

Hi community! We use a custom dropdown field called "Work Category" on all of our tasks. Often, subtasks or issues get logged on these tasks. I want them to have the same "Work Category" as the parent task for reporting purposes. I think this can be done with a calculated field but I'm not really sure how to do this. Or perhaps this would work as a calculated column since I only need it for the report? Can anyone help? Thank you much!

Melissa Davis

[Doug_Den_Hoed__AtAppStore · Accepted solution]

Hi @MelissaDa,

One pattern is to have a calculated custom parameter check a task for its own Work Category, and if it is blank, "move up" to check the parent(s) until a value is found, such as this:

IF(ISBLANK({DE:Work Category}),IF(ISBLANK(parent.{DE:Work Category}),...,parent.{DE:Work Category}),{DE:Work Category})

You can expand the ... part with as many parent.parent. (etc) cases as you think necessary.

The advantage/gotcha with this is that child Tasks need not match their parents.

Regards,

Doug