Wrapping up the year with a few Automation presents 🎄

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Hey Atlassian Community,

Swaetha from the Automation team here on behalf of Camilo!

As we wrap up the year, we wanted to leave a few presents under your Automation tree. Over the past six months we’ve shipped hundreds of new actions and invested in making them easier to discover and use.

Today we’re sharing our latest updates to help you build smarter, more powerful automations:

• A simplified action picker in the automation builder, making it easier to find the actions you need

• New Send Slack message and Send Microsoft Teams message actions with simpler authentication

• The Use Rovo Agent action is now front and center in the action list, to help you bring the power of AI to your automation flows

• And for builders and partners: Forge Automation Actions are now live, with 20+ Marketplace apps already offering automation actions. You can now unlock new use cases by building custom Automation actions.

Consider this our end‑of‑year gift bundle for Automation power users (and the folks who’d like to become one).

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🎁 Gift #1: Simplified action picker with lots of actions

Automation has grown up a lot this year. Between the new actions we’ve built and the ecosystem of Forge Automation Actions, there are now hundreds of new actions you can plug into your automation flows – and that number will keep growing.

To keep things usable as the catalog scales, we’ve rolled out a simplified action picker in the rule builder.

What this means for you

• Less time hunting for “that one” action you know exists somewhere

• More confidence that you’re picking the best action for your use case, not just the first one you can find

• A better foundation for all the new actions we’ll be adding in 2026 and beyond

Whenever you add an action to a rule in Atlassian Cloud Automation, you’ll see the new experience.

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🎁 Gift #2: New Slack & Microsoft Teams actions with simpler authentication

We know a lot of you rely on Automation to keep your teams in the loop via Slack and Microsoft Teams. Until now, that’s often meant juggling tokens, webhooks, or manual configuration before you could send a single message.

We’ve introduced new versions of Send Slack message and Send Microsoft Teams message that aim to make this much simpler.

If you’ve previously avoided the Slack or Teams actions because setup felt too fiddly, this is your chance to give them another try. If you're using the webhook versions of those actions, fear not. Those actions are not going anywhere, and your existing rules will continue to work.

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🎁 Gift #3: Put Rovo at the top of your Automation wish list

You may have already seen the Use Rovo Agent action in the rule builder – it lets you bring AI into your workflows, so that your automations can not only do things, but also think a bit along the way.

We heard your feedback that this was hard to discover, so we’ve moved Use Rovo Agent to the top of the action list, so it’s much easier to find.

What you can do with it

Use Rovo inside your rules to:

• Add AI‑powered steps alongside your existing automation logic

• Generate or transform content as part of a rule (for example, enriching messages or updating fields with AI‑generated text)

If you haven’t got started with the Use Rovo Agent action, this is your invitation to take it for a spin. Next time you’re building an automation, select Use Rovo Agent from the top of the action list, and see how you can combine AI with your existing triggers and actions. A previous articles on how you can use Rovo can be found here. 

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🎁 Gift #4: Forge developers can now build actions for Automation (and ~20 apps already have)

This one is especially exciting for builders, admins, and anyone who’s ever wished “I could just add my action to Automation.”

Forge Automation Actions are now available, meaning Forge developers can build custom actions that plug directly into Atlassian Automation. These actions show up right alongside other actions in the Automation builder.

What’s possible now

• Internal teams can build company‑specific actions tailored to your workflows

• Marketplace partners can offer packaged automation actions that work across Atlassian products

• Admins and power users get a growing catalog of actions to choose from, without waiting on core product teams for every integration

We already have around 20 apps in the Atlassian Marketplace offering automation actions via Forge, and we’re just getting started.

To get started, visit: https://www.atlassian.com/blog/developer/automate-more-in-jira-a-guide-to-forge-automation-actions

Looking ahead to 2026

In 2026, we’ll continue investing in:

• Making Forge actions easier to discover in the action picker

• Providing better structure and navigation as the catalog grows

• Creating a smoother experience end‑to‑end for developers, admins, and rule authors

If you’re a developer, now’s a great time to explore building your own Automation actions on Forge. If you’re an admin, keep an eye on Marketplace for more apps offering “Automation actions” in their description.

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How to get started

You can start using these improvements in Atlassian Automation today:

1. Try the new action picker

   • Open any automation rule, select Add component > New action, and explore the updated layout.

2. Update or create rules with Slack/Teams

   • Look for the new Send Slack message and Send Microsoft Teams message actions in the action picker.

   • Authenticate when prompted and wire them into your existing notification rules.

3. Experiment with the Use Rovo action

   • In the action picker, find Use Rovo at the top of the list.

   • Add it to a rule and start exploring how AI can enhance your existing automations.

4. Explore Forge Automation Actions

   • Browse the Atlassian Marketplace for apps that offer Automation actions.

   • If you’re a developer, check out our Forge documentation to learn how to build your own actions for Automation.

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We’d love your feedback

These updates are all about making Automation more powerful and more approachable as the catalog grows.

We’d love to hear from you:

• Which of these “presents” are you most excited about?

• What actions or integrations would you like to see next?

• How can we make it even easier to discover and use the right actions in your rules?

Leave a comment below, or book time with the Automation team here.

Thanks for being such an engaged and thoughtful Community this year. We’re excited to see what you automate next.

[Bill Sheboy]

Greetings, community!

As with the previous rule editor UX approach having a large set of "recommend actions" at the top, always showing the Rovo Agent action at the top has the same challenge: it assumes everyone wants to start there.

I respectfully suggest reviewing the open suggestions and defects in JAC on this topic to learn what customers think, and perhaps please consider:

• do not assume one size fits all
• do not show triggers, actions, etc. which are not already configured for a site's apps and sites
• add the ability to pin triggers, actions, etc. when people want to regularly select the same ones...perhaps storing that information in the user configuration
• as with the challenges of customers accidentally creating new sites, admins may want better control of which rule features are used: allow hiding of triggers and actions at a site level to prevent unexpected usage

Kind regards,
Bill

[Josh]

Overall, I've been very appreciative of the many enhancements to automation over the past year. As admins, we're "feeling the love". Thank you for your continued work towards improving the experience!

I agree with @Bill Sheboy's suggestions around offering personalization options rather than a one size fits all or most approach.

• Filtering out (or showing at the bottom of the list) the actions that are not connected to the site would definitely make the experience for new and long-time admins way better.
• Being able to pin the preferred actions, conditions, triggers, etc. would definitely yield faster and simpler builds.

Looking forward to seeing how the experience improves even more in the year ahead.