Use custom field 'Start date' from Epic in automation

[Myrthe van Marissing]

Hi! I'm trying to configure an automation on issues where we calculate the Go Live date of a customer. This should be Start date + 4 weeks. 

This Start Date field is customer made field by ourselves. When scrolling through Jira and the internet, the only option I could find was to use {{issue.startDate.plusDays(30)}}, but unfortunately this isn't working. 

Does anyone know how I can create an automation for new Epics where I can calculate the Go Live date, by adding 4 weeks (or 30 days) to our Start Date custom field?

[Kalyan Sattaluri]

Hello @Myrthe van Marissing 

Welcome to the community.

Please share screenshot of your current rule, it will help to know your trigger. You *may* have to add a refetch action after your trigger sometimes and that solves the problem.

Another common issue when working with smart values is field names. Hoping this custom Start Date is a date picker field. Can you share a screenshot of the field on the screen so we know what its called.

Cause If field is called Start Date, then you should use {{issue.Start Date.plusDays(30)}} instead of {{issue.startDate.plusDays(30)}}.

And, If you know the customfield value for this field, even better. But most of the times, just using the display name of the field works.

So just using {{issue.Start Date.plusDays(30)}} may solve the problem as well.

BTW, you can also try {{issue.Start Date.plusWeeks(4)}} if thats the window you want.

Hope it helps! Thanks.

[Bill Sheboy]

Hi @Myrthe van Marissing -- Welcome to the Atlassian Community!

Adding to Kalyan's suggestions...

Myrthe, you noted "Start Date field is customer made field by ourselves."  But there is already a built-in field with that name.

If you did indeed add a custom field, why create the duplicate field name as that may cause confusion in Jira resolving to the correct field?

Kind regards,
Bill

[Myrthe van Marissing]

@Kalyan Sattaluri thanks for your reply! Hereby the screenshot of the automation. I've changed it to {{issue.Start Date.plusDays(30)}} to see it that will do the trick.

@Bill Sheboy also thank you for your reply, and you are correct. It is not a custom field (sorry new to Jira as you can tell ;-)). 

[Bill Sheboy]

Smart values are name, spacing, and case-sensitive, and often they do not exactly match the displayed name for fields on issue views.  When an incorrect smart value is used, it is substituted with null, often failing to work as expected.

I believe the smart value for that field in Jira Cloud is:

{{issue.Start date}}

When you need to confirm the syntax of a smart value (or its custom field id), please use this how-to article: https://support.atlassian.com/cloud-automation/docs/find-the-smart-value-for-a-field/