Automation Rule to restrict overriding of date value in a custom field.

[Sujitha_Krishnan]

Hey Team,

We have added a customer field named "Inprogressdate" to capture the date and time when an item is transitioned to "In progress" status.

The date is populated from Blank -> date, time when an item is transitioned first time to "In progress" status. For instance, when this item has transitioned all the way through "ready for PO" and then due to some reason gets back to "In progress" status, the field "InProgressDate" gets overridden and captures this date. 

I am looking for an automation rule that can either stop this override or can help to restore the initial value.

I followed the steps from this previously answered question, but it failed in my case since the custom field is not a string.

https://community.atlassian.com/t5/Jira-Software-questions/applying-fieldChange-from-on-multi-value-field-in-automation/qaq-p/1648774

Is there a similar rule that can be used for a "Date Time Picker" type custom field? Any lead would be of great help. Thanks.

[John Funk · Accepted solution]

Hi Sujitha - Welcome to the Atlassian Community!

Here is what I would do for the rule. Use the trigger for Issue Transitioned to In Progress - but why are you checking all of the statuses it is coming from? Why not simplify the code to just say it transitions to In Progress. 

Next, change your Condition to say = Empty. This means the field does not have a value therefore, update the field. Otherwise it will not update the field and override the value that is already there.

Finally, just use {{now}} for the update of the field. You don't need any Advance code. Just put {{now}} in the box for the field. 

[Sujitha_Krishnan]

Thanks John for the quick response.

I got it working! Thankyou so much!😊

[John Funk]

Great! Glad you got it working.