When you break an epic into features and each feature has its own dates and story points, the parent epic should reflect the full picture: the earliest start, the latest end, and the combined effort.
Keeping that in sync manually is error-prone. Aggregation automation rules handle it for you: the parent's value is derived directly from its children, and updates whenever a child changes.
How aggregation works
An aggregation rule watches a specific field across a set of child items and calculates the parent's value automatically. There are two types:
Date aggregation - the parent's start date becomes the earliest start date among its children. The parent's end date becomes the latest end date. As children's dates shift, the parent's span updates to always cover the full range.
Numeric aggregation - the parent's value becomes the sum of its children's values. Common fields: Story Points, Value, Effort.
Aggregation applies downward through the hierarchy you define. You choose which field to aggregate and which levels to include (for example, Feature to Epic, or Story to Feature).
Note: Aggregation rules run at the workspace level. They apply to Epics, Features, and Stories. Portfolio-level items (Initiatives) are not affected.
Setting up an aggregation rule
Follow these steps:
Go to Settings and select Automation rules
Click + Add rule
Click the Field link in the rule description to open the field picker and select the field you want to aggregate
Toggle the rule to Active
Click the checkmark to save
The rule applies to all future changes. Existing parent values are not retroactively recalculated when you save the rule
Each rule targets a single field. To aggregate multiple fields (for example, both Dates and Story points), create a separate rule for each one. Each rule has its own Active toggle and can be turned on or off independently without deleting it.
Which fields can be aggregated
The field picker in an aggregation rule shows every numeric and date field available in your workspace - both system fields and custom fields. Common examples include:
Dates - aggregate start and end dates across the hierarchy (parent span = earliest child start to latest child end)
Story points - sum all child story point values into the parent
Effort - roll up effort estimates from features to epics
Custom numeric fields such as Reach, Impact, Confidence, or any scoring field your team has created
If a field does not appear in the picker, it is not a numeric or date-type field and cannot be aggregated.
How completed items are handled
Aggregation skips items whose status is in the completed category. When a child is marked complete, its value is excluded from the parent's next calculation.
In practice: if you have three features under an epic, and Feature 1 is completed, the epic's aggregated dates and story points are calculated from Feature 2 and Feature 3 only. Marking Feature 1 complete does not immediately change the parent's current value - the parent recalculates the next time another child item is updated.
This behavior keeps completed work stable. If your team needs the parent to reflect the full historical span (including completed children), treat the aggregated parent value as a planning figure rather than a record of actual delivery.
Combining aggregation with other rules
Aggregation and inheritance serve different purposes and work well together:
Use inheritance to push a field value (such as Quarter) down from parent to children.
Use aggregation to roll dates or story points back up to the parent.
A typical setup for a team planning by quarter: set an inheritance rule on the Quarter field so all features automatically share the epic's quarter, then set a date aggregation rule so the epic's dates always reflect what the features actually cover.
You can combine aggregation with date alignment rules as well. Date alignment adjusts items' dates when their quarter or sprint changes - aggregation then recalculates the parent based on those updated child dates.
What comes next?
Inheritance automation rules - push a field value from a parent down to all child items automatically
Date alignment automation rules - align item dates when their quarter or sprint changes
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