Jira automation - send single email to assignee for overdue work items

[Josh Collins]

Jira Cloud has an automation feature for Advanced Branching that allows for iterating over results based on certain fields (like assignee).  Example implementation of this: https://confluence.atlassian.com/automationkb/automation-rule-to-send-single-email-for-all-issues-per-assignee-due-next-week-1130727622.html

Is there a way to achieve similar results on the Data Center version?  Effectively we want to be able to run a filter of overdue items and send a single email to each assignee that includes all the tickets meeting that criteria for them.

Is this achievable?

Thanks!

[Bill Sheboy]

Hi @Josh Collins -- Welcome to the Atlassian Community!

I can think of a few ways to do this, and one is with 

1. Using a scheduled trigger rule with no JQL
2. Add a branch to find overdue issues for a specific assignee, and enable the bulk-handling option
3. Use a condition to check if there are issues, and
4. If found, send the email to that assignee
5. Repeat steps 2-4 for each possible assignee

This method requires hard-coding the assignees, and is limited by the 65 component rule limit.

Lookup issues and advanced branching appear to be in-progress for for server /data center (according to the publish suggestions) and you could use those later.

Kind regards,
Bill

[bkillpack]

I am trying to send a single email to assignees for past due work items on Jira Server.

I have been referencing the link in the first post and your steps, but I am getting stuck on step 4.  Can you give me an example or point me to a thread that shows what this looks like?  

Thanks!

[Bill Sheboy]

Hi @bkillpack -- Welcome to the Atlassian Community!

You note using Jira Server, and that does not have the Lookup Issues action.

Instead you would use the bulk-processing option for the branch, and reference the {{issues}} smart value.  Please note that is plural as it refers to the issues as a batch.  In the linked documentation below it shows an example of using that to send a single email.

https://confluence.atlassian.com/automation/run-a-rule-against-issues-in-bulk-993924653.html

Kind regards,
Bill

[bkillpack]

It is working.  Thanks for the help!

[Ines B_]

@Bill Sheboy  This will send an email to all assignees with all the issues, won't it? Is there a way to send an email per assignee with only the issues for this particular assignee? like in the article for Cloud but for DataCenter.

Thanks!

[Bill Sheboy]

Hi @Ines B_ 

I am using Jira Cloud, and so cannot validate my suggestion for Jira Data Center's version of automation rules...

Data Center does have the lookup issues action (with a limited number of fields) but does not have advanced branching, to allow iterating over things other than issues (e.g., assignee users).  Here is the suggestion to add advanced branching for the Server / Data Center versions of automation: https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/JIRAAUTOSERVER-749

The only two work-arounds I can think of would be:

1. Use a rule with an if / else structure to check if each possible assignee has issues, and then send the email.  The assignees would need to be hard-coded into the rule, and so this would be limited to around 30 possible people based on maximum rule size.
2. Use multiple rules, each one checking for a specific possible assignee

Both rules will require on-going maintenance to manage team changes, although the second may be easier as it only requires rule copying (or disabling) for team member changes.

Kind regards,
Bill

[Ines B_]

@Bill Sheboy thanks, I've voted for the suggestion. I was hoping that I missed something and there was a way to implement it with the new lookup issues. Thanks for the suggested workarounds!

[John Funk]

@Simmo - What say ye?

[Simmo]

Hey John,

Afraid I don't have anything useful here. It really needs the component like Cloud has.