creating an automation rule to update status via another project ticket for specific statuses

[Sara Nicholson]

Goal: I am trying to set up our automation rule to NOT move our project tickets to "In Progress" when the linked Dev ticket moves to In Progress, but rather move it to "Development in Progress." Read on, it's complicated.... 

When we create a linked ticket to our project ticket, an automation rule updates a custom field with the linked dev ticket number. Then the automation rule updates the status of our project ticket to match the dev project ticket status whenever it changes, so we know where it is in the process. We have some statuses that are exceptions, and we exclude those from the automation using workflow conditions (i.e., if our project ticket is in "Waiting on Customer," the automation doesn't update our project ticket with the linked dev ticket status - this is working as intended).

One of those statuses is "In Progress." The issue is that Dev uses In Progress when they are working on the issue, and we use In Progress when we are making updates to the ticket, and then manually move it back to match the linked Dev ticket status. When the Dev ticket status is in progress, and we are done working on our ticket, we move the ticket to "Development in Progress," rather than "In Progress." Then, when the linked dev ticket moves out of "In Progress," our tickets follow the status of the dev ticket again...

The automation rule is set up so it shouldn't change the status of our project tickets when the linked Dev ticket status moves to In Progress, but it isn't working. It is moving the status of our project tickets to In Progress. Then, because of the workflow conditions (in progress being a status on our project tickets that can't be moved via automation), our tickets get "stuck" in In Progress.

I've tried the rule this way: 

 

And I've tried the rule this way: 

[Bill Sheboy]

Hi @Sara Nicholson 

From what you describe, there is likely a condition error in the rule...or an incorrect assumption about when the rule does (or does not) trigger.

For the community to help, I recommend posting:

• your entire rule in one continuous image, and
• an example audit log entry when the rule does not work as expected, expanding all the areas at the right side's > so we can see the work items involved.

Kind regards,
Bill

[Bill Sheboy]

Thanks for the additional information, and...please post a response rather than just editing your question or the community will not see notifications for the changes.

First, let's align on some concepts:

• Atlassian currently uses the term "project" to refer to a collection of work items, and you seem to mean something else.  I will use "project" to refer to what you note and project-A, etc. to refer to the Jira concept.
• Your rule is incorrectly using conditions, if / else blocks, and branching:
  • With conditions, if the criteria is not met the rule stops processing
  • With if / else blocks, multiple different criteria sections can be used
  • Branches which could be on more than one thing execute in parallel and asynchronously, and so the rule steps after the branch begin before the branch finishes

One of your scenarios seems to be this:

GIVEN a "project" work item in Jira project-A
AND it is not in the status "Development in Progress"
AND it has linked "Dev" work items in Jira project-B
WHEN a linked "Dev" work item transitions to "In Progress"
THEN transition the "project" work item to "Development in Progress"

How does that align with your scenario?  And, are there other cases to handle?

[Sara Nicholson]

I was able to resolve the issue. I separated the rule into 2. The first one excluded the status "In Progress" and the second one was specifically for when our tickets are "In Progress." Below are the 2 separate rules. Everything is now working as expected.