Automation Transitions Work Does Not Update Kanban Display

[Knox McCormac]

I am viewing my Kanban board and I move an Epic from any open status to "Canceled" or "Completed". A automation that checks an issue when it transitions into either "Completed" or "Closed" is triggered to make sure none of triggering issue's children are still open. If it finds that the issue triggering the automation has open children then it transitions that issue back to "In Progress". I only need this automation for Epics because the workflow rule that restricts a transition based on the status of it's sub tasks does not work on Epics. The rule works mostly but there are 2 items I am stuck on to make the automation better.

1) When the automation transitions the Epic back to "In Progress" the Kanban board is not updated. The Epic remains in the "Canceled" or "Completed" column. However if you have the Epic selected so that you see the details in the sidebar, you can see that the status has changed. Refreshing the page now shows the Epic in the "In Progress" column. Is there any way to force a refresh or a setting I am missing to update the board automatically?

2) Is there a way to capture the original status of the Epic to return it back to that status? I am assuming it came from "In Progress" but it could have come from "Scheduled" or "Waiting".

Thanks.

[John Funk · Accepted solution]

Hi Knox - Welcome to the Atlassian Community!

1) The board will eventually catch up, but you can't force a page refresh. But it shouldn't take long. Is there a pressing need for it to be immediate. 

2) You can try to use an IF/ELSE Condition for each of the 3 scenarios and transition the Epic to the one from the condition. 

[Bill Sheboy]

Hi @Knox McCormac -- Welcome to the Atlassian Community!

Yes, and...to John's suggestions:

For the second part of your question, the previous value of the status may found with the changelog smart value with the Work Item Transitioned trigger:

• {{#changelog.status}}{{fromString}}{{/}} would be the name of the previous status
• {{#changelog.status}}{{from}}{{/}} would be the ID of the previous status

And so you could use an IF / ELSE block with repeated transition actions, or call the REST API once.

Kind regards,
Bill

UPDATE: it appears Atlassian documentation just went offline, so perhaps wait a bit before trying that link.

[Knox McCormac]

Hi @John Funk ,

1) No need for it to be immediate except for confirmation. We are running into the same update slowness when we change the flag and color of an issue using automation. 

2) I see. What are you testing in the IF/ELSE statements? Is it the smart value @Bill Sheboy  mentions or something else? 

[John Funk]

1) Good ... and yep.

2) Also yep  :-)

[Knox McCormac]

@John Funk and @Bill Sheboy Thank you so much. This has been very helpful. I played around with it some last night and see how I can use it.

[John Funk]

You are very welcome - and special thanks to @Bill Sheboy  as well.