Help with utilizing issue.htmlDescription in third party app?

[DH]

Hi all, I've got a third party app in Jira and one of its functions involves sending a notification related to Issues.  It includes the typical fields but not the description.  I expanded its jar file and found the email template.  It was fairly easy to add ${issue.description} and the relevant html around it to have it spit out nicely in the generated emails.  Only problem I've run into is where a given Issue's description makes use of markdown for links, bulleted lists, etc; these of course come out incorrect.

I dug around in the core template files found in WEB-INF/classes/templates/email/html/ since Jira's own issue reminders format the content correctly in email.  I found the use of $issue.htmlDescription but I'm having difficulty determine what content needs to go into this file to actually let me make use of that.  Obviously some other function must be called on the real issue.description, but what that is, or what other file I need to parse / include, I'm at a loss.

Would greatly appreciate any pointers.

[Boris Berenberg - Atlas Authority · Accepted solution]

What is the app that you're hacking? You may have more luck asking the vendor to modify it for you. We support similar types of changes in Notification Assistant for Jira (we make this) and tweak the available placeholders based on customer feedback all the time.

[DH]

It's the Repeated Issues app; let's you configure a schedule at which given issues get cloned to new instances.  We use it to recreate Issues used for task management that has to occur on a regular basis, then tracked and subject to audit.  Works great, but the notification emails that it sends when a new issue has been created and assigned to you don't have the description, so then the recipient has to click, log into Jira, figure out what to do, etc.  Just adds a bunch of extra time if the task would otherwise have been an easy one, or means getting out a laptop to VPN in to read what it is vs having it in email on mobile device.

[Boris Berenberg - Atlas Authority]

I would absolutely say you should contact support@codedoers.atlassian.net and see if they can make the change as a core of the product for you. The latest review on their app even says

"We made a feature request based on how we'd like to configure the plugin, and the CodeDoers team accepted our request and added it to their next release right away. That's what I call very responsive support! "

[DH]

Thanks Boris; they've got my change request on the feature list.

Curious; would there be a way to use your app give me a workaround to this issue?  Theirs allows for the disabling of new Issue creation notification.  Perhaps new issue creation (by their app) would then trigger your app, which can include the description in markdown/html format in the message?

[Boris Berenberg - Atlas Authority]

Hi David,

In our app you could trigger a notification on issue creation that matches a specific JQL and then configure an appropriate notification template with the fields and other text you want. I would encourage you to trial it and if you have any issues, open a support request at https://atlasauthority.atlassian.net/servicedesk/customer/portal/1/group/1/create/1

[DH]

This is fantastic, yep, threw the eval in and it's already working.  I turned off the new Issue notification in recurring issues, added an Issue Created email template in Notification Assistant, added a Create Issue active notification set to "createdDate > startOfDay()" triggered on Issue Created, and it sends me new issues as they're cloned, with the proper description in the body!!

Thanks!

Any chance you could point me to a list of variables that I can use in the fields?  The docs say "The Notification Assistant supports most of the internal JIRA fields" but I'm having trouble finding where exactly Atlassian defines those fields.  Through trial and error I was able to figure out I could use ${Summary} to get the issue summary to be the subject of the email. 

[Boris Berenberg - Atlas Authority]

Hey David, take a look at https://atlasauthority.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/NAFJ/pages/930381832/Placeholders