How to prevent the "Updated"/"UpdateDate" field from changing when the change is due to automation

[Cash Coyne]

I want to have an automation rule that changes a field in an issue, but I don't want the "Updated"/"UpdateDate" field changed.

The reason is that I only want the updated field to represent changes made by a user, not most automation rules.

Is there a way to do this?

[Dan Tombs · Accepted solution]

Hi @Cash Coyne

Unfortunately the actual updated field doesn't care how the update came to the issue but just reflects that there was an update.

The way I have seen teams get around this is to have an additional custom date and time field and use an automation rule to copy the time stamp into it when an actual user makes an update.

The rule would look like below.

Trigger: Issue updated.

Condition: User condition - User who triggered event - Is not in role - Atlassian-addons-project-access.

Action: Edit issue - New custom date field - {{now.jiraDateTime}}

Let me know what you think.

[Craig Nodwell]

Hi @Cash Coyne as mentioned by @Dan Tombs this is not out of the box behavior.  What is the actual platform that you are working in?  Also, do you have any scripting plugins available in your instance something like Scriptrunner?  Only asking as this could help with under the hood work in capturing the date/time information that you want.

[Cash Coyne]

@Craig Nodwell , I have considered a solution like @Dan Tombs recommended, but if you have another one, I'd like to hear it.  We have scriptrunner and are running in Jira Cloud.

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

You could replicate the Automation rule @Dan Tombs gave us with Scriptrunner.

There's a script that would be easily modifiable to set a date over at https://library.adaptavist.com/entity/calculate-custom-field-on-issue-update?tab=cloud