Confluence Automation - Creating Jira Epic & Tasks

[Sean Perry]

I have a Confluence Automation that can successfully create a Jira Epic with 6 Tasks, but I have 2 issues:

1. The Tasks are not linked to the Epic
2. The Tasks are not created in order (they are numbered 1 - 6

Any help would be gratefully received. Please note I am not technical, in the sense that I don't know code, so answers for a layman please :-)

[Bill Sheboy]

Hi @Sean Perry 

As others have described, to create the Tasks as children of the new Epic, you may use a Created Variable to capture the Epic's key, and then use that as the Parent for the Task creation.

The more challenging part is creating the Tasks in sequential order for an unknown number of items...

• With current rule features, that is not possible with one rule.  Adding a Delay action to the rule will not help as branches process in parallel and asynchronously, with no predictable time for the Task create.  There is an "in progress" suggestion to support sequential versus parallel branch iteration, although there is no information what Atlassian will implement or to which license level it will appear.  (e.g., maybe only Premium and Enterprise will get it)
• There is a Premium / Enterprise level feature for advanced components to Delay Until which might help, adding conditions to check the existence of the just-created Task.  In my opinion, that seems like a brittle and risky approach for this scenario...and I would not recommend using the feature until it has been in the product for a while given the potential for racetrack timing errors.

For some workarounds, I can think of three, in increasing order of effort and risk:

1. With fewer than 10 Tasks to create, use a two rule, recursive solution.  The first rule creates the Epic, and then "calls" a second rule using the Send Web Request action, passing the data list of Tasks to create and their parent's Key.  This second rule uses an Incoming Webhook Trigger, receives the data list, creates one Task (consuming it from the list), and when there are more to process, calls itself using Send Web Request.
2. You could try using the bulk-create REST API endpoint, using the Send Web Request action.  The "trick" is to iterate the list of data values for the Task to build the JSON message in a Created Variable, passing that in the call.  There is no documentation if the list is processed sequentially or in parallel, but you could experiment to test that.
3. Build your own external service which can iterate sequentially, using the REST API to create the Tasks.  Call your new service with the Send Web Request action.

Kind regards,
Bill

[Tomislav Tobijas]

Hi @Sean Perry ,

For the first part, try creating a variable with a smart value immediately after create Epic action:

{{createdIssue.key}}

This should store Epic item key that you can use later in the branch when creating tasks.

As for the #2 thing: ordering. If you're on the Premium plan, you could use Delay actions within the branch. It may take some time to create all items and execute all actions within the rule, but this should result in items being created in the correct order.

There's this feature request, which has a related problem, and some workarounds you could also use: AUTO-32: Rule orchestration - allow switch between parallel and sequential execution of Automation Rules, e.g. via wait/delay step 

Hope this helps.

Cheers,
Tobi

[Valerie Knapp]

Hi @Sean Perry , thanks for your post.

I would suggest you could create another automation rule in Jira, like this.

First of all, it is important to check this box to have the rule be triggered by another automation:

Then, the trigger would be the creation of the Epic, so you can configure the trigger to be, when an Epic is created, in the destination project.

Then, you can have a series of actions to create the Tasks, indicating the Parent as the trigger work item, like this

Please can you give this a go and see if it works? Let us know if you need more help or have other problems.

Best wishes