automation rule + smart values question

[Jason]

Scenerio:
Want to clone a ticket and include all the user generated content from the ticket into the clone (comments, photos, links).  Using https://community.atlassian.com/t5/Jira-questions/Copy-comments-while-cloning-the-Issue-in-Jira-cloud/qaq-p/1196226 method.

Original ticket has 4 attachments and 14 comments dating from today, August 29 2023 back to August 21 2023

Have successfully run the automation rule without errors (see above link)

All attachments ported over.  The comments are listed in descending order, from newest to oldest (this is how it is preferred to be)

however three issues remain to be solved:

1)  The most recent comment was left out
2)  Some of the comments are out of order chronologically
3)  Some comments are missing.  Clone has 9 comments vs 14 from the original

Cloning from / to same destination project and comments are open visibility

[Jason]

I have a follow up question @Bill Sheboy 

I've implemented this (thank you!) and there is one issue.  

Some of the comments are coming in out of order occasionally.  I've researched and can't identify the cause or the solution to fix this...

Wondered if you or anyone in the community may have suggestions?

[Bill Sheboy]

Hi @Jason 

I thought we already covered that topic in this question: branches on more than one thing are executed in parallel and asynchronously.  And so we have no control over the order of processing.  In fact, there is no guarantee of when the branch will complete...up to the very last step of rule execution.

I suspect there might be a marketplace addon which can deal with this, albeit slowly, by: adding/cloning comments one at a time, waiting until success is confirmed, and only then adding the next one.

Kind regards,
Bill

[Luka Hummel - codefortynine]

Hi @Jason

If you still have problems cloning your issues with all comments and attachments, our app Deep Clone for Jira can help you.

Our app will clone all comments if you have selected Comments in the clone configuration.

If you select attachments, Deep Clone will also clone all attachments.

[Jason]

@Luka Hummel - codefortynine does this guarantee that the cloned comments will come into the new cloned ticket in the proper order always?

[Luka Hummel - codefortynine]

@Jason Yes, Deep Clone will add the comments in the proper order.

[Bill Sheboy]

Hi @Jason 

There is currently no way in automation rules to solve the out-of-order issue.  The reason is that solution uses branching, and branches on more than one thing are run in parallel and asynchronously.  In fact, there is no guarantee of when the branch will complete, up to the very last step of the rule.  To learn more on that, please look here: https://support.atlassian.com/cloud-automation/docs/jira-automation-branches/#Ordering-of-branch-executions

For the other symptoms you are seeing, we would need to see your rule to determine the cause.  Please post images of your complete rule, showing the details of your actions, and of the audit log showing the rule execution.  Those will provide context to help find the cause.

Kind regards,
Bill

[Jason]

@Bill Sheboy the image posting is exactly what is here at the top of this link.  Audit log below:

[Bill Sheboy]

Let's test that hypothesis...

Before your branch, write this to the audit log, run the rule, and then observe the results to compare the number of comments found to what you expected:

Number of comments found: {{destinationIssue.comments.size|0}}

[Jason]

testing...

[Jason]

@Bill Sheboy apologies, but I don't understand what you mean by writing it to the audit log

[Bill Sheboy]

There is a rule action named Log which allows writing anything to the audit log.  This is helpful to diagnose what is happening / show progress of a rule.

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

[Jason]

@Bill Sheboy successfully ran test with audit log:

[Jason]

number of comments found by audit log = 16, but only 10 were copied to the newly created clone ticket

[Bill Sheboy]

Thanks for that information.  Reviewing that other suggested rule in the post, here is what I believe is happening:

• In your rule for the Add Comment action, you have selected the option to "Prevent duplicates by only adding this comment once to a particular issue"
• And...some of the original, source comments are similar enough they were detected as duplicates in the branch

You can check this quickly: de-select that option and run the rule again for the same issue with the difference in the number of comments.

[Jason]

Resolved thank you!