Adding a column with a visual indicator to detect changes on a ticket?

[Jason Crocker]

I'd like to add a column or field to a ticket that will highlight when a change has been made to a ticket. Changes could be a comment, custom field change, status change, etc... Any change made to a ticket. But a visual indicator that I could use in my queue that would let me know a change has been made so I can review it for my team. How can I achieve this?

[Jack Brickey · Accepted solution]

Hi Jason,

so how long would the indicator last? Would it automatically clear or would you manually clear it. 

options…

• Use a simple query, e.g.updated <= now() and updated > -1h, then create a queue to display based on the JQL
• use custom field and automation. The automation rule would set the field on issue updated + any desired conditions. The queue would display any issue where custom field was set. The agent would clear the field to acknowledge and remove from queue.

[Jason Crocker]

The 2nd option you mention sounds close to what I'm looking for. I'm trying to recreate a feature that existed in a ticketing system I use to use. There was a tiny dot indicator that would show up next to the ticket in the queue when the ticket was updated in any way. In JIRA, this would be within the "All Open Tickets" queue. When I saw that dot was there, it meant the ticket had been updated and I could go see what was updated.

Can you elaborate further on the configuration of "use custom field and automation" to achieve this?

[Jack Brickey]

Note regarding your response to Nic, there is not anything in Jira that detects when you view an issue. At least anything that can be leveraged as a trigger.

my second recommendation looks something like this…

custom field yes/no field - Recent Update. This field would get set by automation anytime an update is made to an issue. I would limit this to a customer update. The reason being if you could get yourself into a loop since the agent clearing this recent update field, would be seen as an update itself. 😉

automation rule - trigger = issue updated, condition = update by customer, set recent update to yes

ultimately you are going to need to play around with this and see if it works for you. Personally I would be looking at something like option 1. 

IMO, it would be nice if JSM provided an optional ACK feature for ‘new customer update’. The idea is to require the agent to ACK the update. Granted there are methods of achieving.

[Jason Crocker]

This is great and something I'll start playing with. And note taken about the automation loop... I've experienced that issue before with a different automation I finally got working properly. 

If you don't mind since you recommend option 1, what would that look like? I haven't worked with JQL or queries in JSM that I'm aware of and am having a difficult time understanding it.

[Jack Brickey]

Option 1 is just as stated…

• create a new Queue called maybe “recent update”
• define the queue with a JQL like updated <= now() and updated > -1h Change to meet your needs

understand that if your agents don’t monitor the queue the update will go unnoticed. This is why notification emails are important.

[Jason Crocker]

I'll play around with this as well. I'd like to add this functionality to that "All open tickets" queue as this is something really for me to use as the Manager. I use the Dashboards area but there can be so many updates at times that it's too busy to rely on.

[Jason Crocker]

This queue idea works well! Question about tickets falling out of this queue after a period of time though. Ideally, once I review this ticket  and the most recent changes I don't want to see it in this queue. Any solutions for that?

[Jack Brickey]

Basically you have to somehow acknowledge that you have read the update.  In that case you would be looking to incorporate a custom field as previously mentioned in option two. Then you would need to work this into your JQL.

[Jason Crocker]

Can I adjust the JQL filter to only show tickets with updates within the past 24 hours?

[Jack Brickey]

Sure try something like this…

updated <= now() and updated > -24h

or

updated >= startofday(-1)

[Jason Crocker]

That works for my needs. I'll play around with the number of hours to fit our environment but this will definitely work. Thanks for your help!

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

My starter question here is "since when?"  "when a change has been made since <something>".  Since I last looked at the issue?  Since it was created?  In the last X minutes/hours/days?  What exactly is the definition of the change?

[Jason Crocker]

If possible, since the last time I looked at the ticket would be the ideal scenario.