Overview
This article provides information to educate customers and agents about case hierarchies and differences between the available views.
You may often find that you want to break down a feature into a set of subfeatures or break down a task into smaller subtasks. FogBugz allows you to do so quickly and easily through the use of subcases, which are detailed below.
Adding Subcases
Adding Subcases in the Grid View
While viewing a set of cases in the grid view, you can add a subcase to any case by selecting it and clicking the Add Subcase button at the bottom of the screen. Alternatively, you can choose the Add Subcase option in the Context menu.
Once the case is created, it appears indented below the parent case when viewed in an outline format. You can make the outline as in-depth and detailed as you like by creating subcases of subcases. Cases matching the current filter are displayed in blue, while parents of cases matching the filter (but do not themselves match) are shown in gray.
If you want the outlines to be collapsed by default, make sure your filter doesn’t match any child cases. You can do this with the parent search axis (parent:0 doesn’t match subcases), or refining the filter using Special > No Parent Case.
If you prefer not to see outlines at all, you can switch from Outline View to Flat View
using the control on the upper left of the case list.
Adding Subcases in the Case View
You can also add subcases in the case view by using the subcases field. You can find an existing case by title via auto-complete, or create a new case on the fly by entering a new title.
In the case view, you can also make the current case the subcase of another by using the parent field.
Additional Information
Aggregating Estimates
It’s usually best practice to create case outlines in such a way that only cases without subcases (i.e., the “bare tasks”) require estimates, but you can enter an estimate for a parent case if it makes sense to do so. In the grid view, the estimate of a parent case is displayed as a sum of its estimate and all subcase estimates.
Resolving / Closing Subcases
When you resolve or close a case that contains subcases, FogBugz gives you the option to perform the same action on all subcases. To do so, click the checkbox below the Resolve & Close or Resolve buttons.