How to exclude clones from a rule?

[Sven Meier]

Dear Community,

I have set up a rule so that when I have an Epic open and I go to add create a linked work item that the newly created story automatically takes over the content of certain fields from the epic. (FYI that rule works only if Issue Type = Story)
Now I want to exclude Stories from that rule that are being created via the "Clone" function.
Does anyone know how to do that?

Best,

Sven

[David Friedrich · Accepted solution]

Add a JQL condition to your Issue created trigger: summary !~ "CLONE - "

[Sven Meier]

Thank you so much David, that worked. 
I just needed to accept the fix that was proposed by Jira and now it looks like (maybe something to do with the Jira-version):

summary !~ "\"CLONE - \""

Follow up question. I am afraid that colleagues will change the title in the in between mask before the creation of the new / cloned story. Would you know a solution for that?

[David Friedrich]

Hi @Sven Meier ,

you are absolutely right to be cautious — users can indeed edit the summary when cloning an issue in Jira, which means your automation rule might not catch it.

It is not a 100% solution, but a condition like this could work additionally as long as the work items are linked together (which is Jira standard behaviour):

[David Friedrich]

Actually I am just noticing, it must be the other link type "clones" NOT "is cloned by". This one is the link type used on the original ticket, that you want your automation to work with. "Clones" identifies the cloned work item you would like to exclude from your automation.
Sorry about that.

[Sven Meier]

That worked perfectly, thank you so much, David!

[G subramanyam]

Hi @Sven Meier welcome to the Atlassian community.

This is a classic and very practical question when setting up Jira Automation rules. 

The good news is, you absolutely can exclude cloned issues from an automation rule! The key is to add a condition that checks if the issue was created as a clone.

When an issue is cloned in Jira, a special internal link is created between the newly cloned issue and the original issue. This is usually reflected in a system field often called "Original issue" (or "Cloned from" in some configurations). We can check if this field is empty or not. If it's empty, the issue wasn't cloned; if it contains a value, it means it's a clone.

Example flow:

 Your automation rule should look something like this:

• Trigger: Issue created

• Conditions:

  • Issue fields condition: Issue Type EQUALS Story

  • AND Issue fields condition: Original issue IS EMPTY (This is the crucial part to exclude clones)

• Action: Copy field content (from Epic to Story)

After implementing, make sure to test.

[Sven Meier]

Hiii @G subramanyam 

First of all thanks for your answer!

I am currently testing your solution proposal. Unfortunately I am unable to find "original issue" in Jira. Is there another name for that field or what field should I be looking for?