Throwback Thursday: What Automation trick/hack/action do you like the best? #TBT

[#1]

It's Thursday!

Jira Automation has been part of many of our lives for a few years now (and before that as a 3rd party app). About three weeks ago, Atlassian release Automation for Confluence in the Premium and Enterprise Cloud versions. To celebrate that, today's #TBT is about Automation :)

I think I will say that "Re-fetch issue data" is probably mine. I discovered it (I know, I know...) just a few months ago and it has really come in handy a few times. Like for example, I was making an automation the other day that has conditional creation of sub-tasks and if one or more sub-task is created then the parent issue should be assigned to a team member.  The "Re-fetch issue data" makes it a breeze.

So, what Automation trick/hack/action do you like the best?

Let’s make it a great Thursday!
KGM

[Kristján Geir Mathiesen]

@Dave Liao  @Andy Gladstone @Jimmy Seddon @Darryl Lee @Ed Gaile

@Taranjeet Singh  @Patrícia Fortunato Montenegro  @Summer Hogan  what are some of the Automation tricks/hacks/actions that you like the best?

[Patrícia Fortunato Montenegro]

Hello @Kristján Geir Mathiesen

Clone issues, for sure, is the best one among many others, lol.

But this automation in Jira is so good on a daily routine; that it's almost magical! 

I love it!

Have a great day ahead! 😃🥳👏🏽🙏🏽

[Dave Liao]

@Kristján Geir Mathiesen - being able to use regular expressions in Automation rules. Having rules trigger when folks mention specific words and phrases. People then wonder how much Jira is listening... 👀

[Brant Schroeder]

@Kristján Geir Mathiesen Auto-create pages.  We have standing meetings that each week someone used to have to create the base agenda and meeting notes.  This auto created them now and when individuals get notified just as before they go and add their agenda items.  

[Dave Mathijs]

Following this thread because there will so much use cases I've never thought of automating ...

I really need to make more use of variables and regex.

[Kai Becker]

Coming from a long history of server / data center instances, I'm in love with all the assets integrations. This opens up so many possibilities :)

[Nikki Zavadska _Appfire_]

Automatically change start date of the task when moved from open to in progress status category and then automatically change Due date when the task is moved to done 🙈 This helps keep roadmaps up to date...

[Craig Nodwell]

Following this thread too.  Looks like I might get some great ideas here.  :)
A tree should be planted for this.

[Callum Carlile _Automation Consultants_]

Some of the automation rule triggers can be a bit vague and can unnecessarily contribute towards your monthly execution limits. To combat this I like using webhook triggered automation rules, as you can trigger these from Workflows, from other automation rules and external systems to ensure that they only trigger the times you want them too!

I also love using smart values to extend the functionality - one of my favourites I've created (with the help of the Community!) is a random number generator which randomly transitions 20% of tasks into a QA section of the workflow, and the other 80% to Done :) see the full thread here if you're interested!

[John Funk]

Mine would be the lookupIssues functionality. 

[Ed Gaile _Atlanta_ GA_]

Ohhh so many to chose from!

How about the ole JSM pass through. Use automation on a JSM workflow to create and link an issue in a Jira Software project. Automatically keep them in synch or closed out via transition linked issues.

[Jousef]

Hello there,

Recently I've been using smart values and if-else blocks in such a way that I almost feel like I can do anything with them, like having if conditions baked in and simple-ish math expressions.

For example, we have multiple teams that pretty much all follow the same kind of process in the company for their daily work in Jira. They mainly consist of developers so they work in a Jira Software project. They do however also rely on SLOs and these are defined by choosing a due date. They PMs requested this to be automatically set in some of the date fields.

The automation is checking the issue and based on its conditions (like what kind of a task it is, what kind of service level it's dealing with, is it a bug, is it a task, etc.), it will calculate the due date. This was only possible with the help of smart values and if-else blocks.

Did you know that you could do all this with smart values? Check the documentation! (Make sure to check all the different pages that deal with projects, lists, text fields, and so on.)

Also a tip to Server admins, if you're still on Server: the Cloud doc works just as fine. At least all that I have tried (and it was quite a lot!)

[Omar Mohamed Fathi]

mine i made a one to delete exe files :D

[Fabio Racobaldo _Catworkx_]

All the automation are fantastic. My favourite are all those that avoid me to write custom code :)

[Summer Hogan]

Sorry I'm so late at answering you @Kristján Geir Mathiesen! I've been out of the office recovering from surgery. But my fav is definitely cloning issues and I also love the new functionality where one can create an issue from so many places within Jira and even minimize an issue that is not yet ready, but has info already populated.  

[Kristján Geir Mathiesen]

Hope you are on the mend, @Summer Hogan  Glad you are at least feeling good enough to jump into the Community :) Get well fast!

[Dan Breyen]

Right now, I'm liking that I can access linked issues between JSM & JIRA and notify the JSM Assignee when the JIRA issue that caused it was fixed.

[Chris K]

@All: What great automations, thank you for sharing and inspiring!

@Nikki Zavadska _Appfire_May I ask how you set this up? Did you use an advanced workflow configuration, or does this work with a script/ add-on? 

Greetings Chris :)

[Laurie Sciutti]

Sooo many.  But my latest favorite is Bulk Commenting for "neglected" sub-tasks.  Saves a lot of manual time.  Will definitely have to take a look into the "Re-fetch issue data"  action.

[Sayed Bares [ServiceRocket]]

Smart values for sure, there is no limit on what kind of things you could do with the objects you are querying.

[John Williams]

Update issues using the trigger of changes to a specific field.   Great way to spawn updates without having to wait for the issues go go through a workflow transition

[Markku Miettunen]

My favorite is setting security groups when an issue is created - we have very versatile and granulated needs for limiting the visibility in and between various projects related particularly to privacy, security and HR.