Make certain fields conditionally required on transition

[jessica.huebner]

After researching the community forum I haven't been able to find a use case that quite matches what I'm trying to do. 

Use Case

I have a single work item type associated with a single workflow. There's a transition between my Being Planned status and Waiting for Approval status. Some fields are always required, which I've specified in the transition Validators. This part is working well as-is.

Some fields, however, are conditionally required when the corresponding custom field is set to a specific value. For instance, when my field 'User Notification Required?' is set to 'Yes', then make field 1 required, otherwise field 1 is not required.

Question

Is it possible to prevent a user from transitioning an issue based on my use case? Please note I'm only interested in using Jira native functionality (please no 3rd party apps).

[John Funk · Accepted solution]

Hi Jessica,

I usually do this with two different transitions between the statues. One transition would have a Value Field condition where User Notification Required? = Yes and one where it has two conditions where the same field is empty or it = No. 

For the first transition you would add ALL of the validators for required fields. For the second one, you would just have the validators for the standard fields. 

Hope that makes sense. 

[jessica.huebner]

Hi John,

Thanks so much for the reply! I was able to achieve the desired outcome using 2 different transitions for the same status. From a user experience standpoint, users will have to know which transition to use, which IMO might be cumbersome, but that's for me to manage. I appreciate your help!

[John Funk]

No, they won't because only one transition will show because only one or the other meets the criteria. 

[jessica.huebner]

That's good to know, John. I must not have set it up properly. I'll post again below once I figure it out (or not).

[jessica.huebner]

Quick update for anyone reading this thread - it worked! In my use case, Since I have 2 fields that are conditionally required, I ended up creating 4 separate transitions to the same status, all with varying conditions and corresponding validators. 4 transitions are required to cover all the possible combinations (No-No, Yes-No, No-Yes, Yes-Yes). 

• I added all required validators to each of the 4 transitions
• No-No: conditional fields are not required. I added conditions for both corresponding fields = No (I set the corresponding fields as required to be set as yes or no upon issue creation so null case is not required at all)
• Yes-No: Field 1 required. I added a condition for the corresponding field = Yes, and added a field 1 validator
• No-Yes: Similar to the above. Field 2 required. I added a condition for the corresponding field = Yes, and added a field 2 validator
• Yes-Yes: Added 2 conditional requirements (all of the following) for corresponding fields = Yes. Added field 1 and 2 validators. 

Thanks again John for the advice! I didn't realize you could create separate transitions between 2 of the same statuses :)

[John Funk]

You are very welcome!

[Gor Greyan]

[Gor Greyan]

Dear @jessica.huebner , thanks for the interesting question.

If you have JMWE app, you can user "Field Requires Vaildator" with the condition, like the provided screen.

If you don't have third-party apps at all, you'd need to redesign the workflow slightly using multiple transitions and validators.

[Aaron Williams]

Hey @jessica.huebner

This is a very interesting question, and I'm sure it can't be done directly from the create screen, it is possible using conditional formatting it Service Management forms. But I am assuming this is a software project?

As you don't want to use any 3rd party app (I try not to use / suggest them either), you could try and automation. 

I would set it up like this: 

1. Trigger: issue transitioned from 'being planned' to 'waiting for approval' - If 'user notification' is set to 'yes' and 'field 1' is empty - Then transition back to previous status and comment:

"As 'user notification' is set to yes, you need to set field 1 before you can transition the item"

And depending on what you prefer, the comment could be a slack notification, or an email. To keep the ticket tidier. 

Let me know what you think. 

Aaron.