How to move a ticket forward in timeline when is blocked by other ticket

[Sara Chaves]

Hello, on the Jira Timeline, when we encounter tickets blocked by others and subsequently adjust the due dates of those blocker tickets, we should observe a corresponding adjustment in the start dates of the tickets being blocked, by the same number of days as the blocking ticket's duration.

In this example, the second ticket is being blocked by the first, and the second should start at the end of the next ticket. 

How can I do this?

[Trudy Claspill]

Hello @Sara Chaves 

The basic Timeline feature in a Standard Jira subscription will not automatically adjust issue dates.

You could use Automation Rules to automatically adjust the dates. There are several posts in this community on that topic.

https://www.google.com/search?q=jira+cloud+automation+change+dependent+task+dates

Some of the possible challenges you may run into are:

1. There is a limit of 1700 rule executions per month on the Standard Jira subscription. You will need to consider how often a rule to adjust dates might be triggered in a month, and how many other rule executions are occurring in your instance.

2. The rule implementation is recursive. It is triggered by the changing of the date of the prerequisite task, and then looks for and adjust dates of dependent tasks. If the dependent task itself is the prerequisite to another task, changing the dates of the dependent task would trigger the rule to run again. The limit on that sort of recursive triggering of a rule is 10 triggers.

[Sara Chaves]

Hi, today I was trying to achieve this by using the automation, but I couldn't put it working. 

This is what i did:

But for some reason, the only thing that is happening is that the ticket that is blocked has the same due date as the ticket that is blocking the other.

And what I was expecting was that the ticket blocked changed the Start date to the same date that is on the Due date of the ticket that is blocking, and maintaining the same number of days. 

Is that possible with automation?

[Trudy Claspill]

Hello @Sara Chaves 

Jira won't natively change the dependent task's due date just because its start date changed. You have to add the steps in your Automation Rule.

You need a Create Variable step to calculate the original duration of the dependent task.

Then in your Edit Issue task you can use the Copy option to update the Start date or use a smart value like I've shown. 

For the Due date you need to use a smart value to change it, calculating a new date that uses the Duration you got in the previous step.

The plusDays function will add a number of calendar days. If you don't want to include weekends then use plusBusinessDays instead.

[Sara Chaves]

Hi, thanks for the exemption and the examples; it helps to understand and configure the Start date of the ticket that was blocked by the other correctly. 

But for some reason, with your instructions, the Due date is not correct, is presenting a big number of days, and its not being added to the ticket

[Trudy Claspill]

Please show us the details of your updated rule, and the details of each step.

Also, are you familiar with the Log action?

https://support.atlassian.com/cloud-automation/docs/jira-automation-actions/#Log-action

You can use that action to write information into the rule execution Audit Log. This is useful to check any values that you are calculating, to make note of the original values before changing them, and to document the values you plan to assign.

[Sara Chaves]

Hi, I did not know about the Audit log; either way, I tried to log the value, and it was returning me nothing, I tried just to log the "duration.asNumber" and it was also returning me nothing.... don't get why.

here are the details:

[Trudy Claspill]

Hello @Sara Chaves 

I recommend using multiple Log actions to print every variable and smart value you are trying you are trying to use to confirm it has the expected.

Smart values can be spacing and case sensitive. When you have the wrong text for your smart value Jira won't necessarily tell you the text is wrong. Instead it will simply find no value for it. Printing out the values in the log using the exact same smart value text can help you identify that you have the wrong text for your smart value.

Also, I have not found it necessary to use the  {{#debug}} syntax in this case. You can just add the smart value itself. I usually add some plain text also so I can tell which smart value I'm trying to print.

I have a suspicion that the problem is the smart value you are using for "start date" in the action where you are creating the variable.

[Sara Chaves]

Hi, I have added that log, but it does not return anything, so the duration is not well calculated is that right?

[Trudy Claspill]

That does indicate that the final value you are trying to calculate is not calculating appropriately.

The next step would be to log each of the other values that goes into that calculation.

The two directly in the calculation are:

{{issue.Due date}}

{{issue.Start date}}

But Start date is getting set based on the duration variable, so you should log the information related to that variable; the variable itself and the data you use the calculate the variable:

{{duration}}

{{issue.startdate.diff(issue.duedate).days}}

{{issue.startdate}}

{{issue.duedate}}