🗓️ Save time by scheduling work in Jira

[#1]

We’re making big changes to make Jira the best work management tool for every knowledge worker on every team. One recent change is making recurring work effortless by allowing you to schedule work.

So whether it's a daily social media post, a weekly status update, or a fortnightly sprint retro - we’ve got you covered!

Our aim is to reduce the effort required to recreate work multiple times, improve consistency and quality, and ensure work isn’t overlooked. We want you to focus on driving successful outcomes rather than on the more tedious work.

Set a work item to recur automatically

1. Open the work item you want to recur automatically.

2. Select Actions (coming soon: click on the Due date field)

3. Locate the menu item Set to recur.

4. Fill in the recurring details— when the work item will recur, the trigger, and when the rule will expire. The trigger can be a schedule, and additionally incorporate whether the work item has been completed.

What happens when the work item recurs?

When the work item recurs, it inherits the automation rule which will be turned on automatically. All fields and child work items will be copied to the newly created work item; except for Attachments, Start date, Due date, and Links

The due date of the recurring work item will be automatically set based on the scheduled frequency. For example, in a weekly schedule, the due date will be set to seven days after the creation date of the work item.

A “recur” icon will appear next to the Due date field in the work item view and next to the work item summary in the Calendar view.

Admin controls

Project admins can disable the rules from within the automations rules view.

1. From within your project, select Project settings > Automation.

2. Select the Rules tab to view a list of all your created automation rules.

3. You can filter the list of rules using the Rule name and the Labels. The Rule name is “Clone on a schedule” and the Label is “Recurring.

4. Depending on your permissions, you will be able to Delete and/or Disable the rule.

Global admins can disable the ability for non-admins to create and manage recurring work rules.

1. Select> System.

2. Select Global automation.

3. Select > Global configuration.

4. Uncheck Allow non-admins to create recurring rules

Frequently asked questions

Questions	Answers
Why don’t I see these changes on my site?	Your site may be enrolled in Release Tracks, where changes are bundled and shipped together at one point during the month. Don’t worry, it just might mean you have to wait a few extra weeks.
Can any users schedule a work item to recur?	Yes, any user can do this. However, Global admins can turn this off at the site level.
Does this contribute to my automation usage limits?	Yes, because this is built on Jira automation, each work item created on a schedule will count towards a rule execution. Learn more about automation usage limits here.

Please share how you are using scheduled work in the comments below!

Regards,
The Jira team

[Lianne Geerlings]

I am really happy seeing this functionality!

In my case it would add value to see a Recur period for Yearly periods. An option that you could extend the due date for just another year (quarter or month and change the status at the same time.

[Jimmy Seddon]

@Eoin I can appreciate what you are trying to accomplish, but this is a very poor implementation.  The moment I read this article, I have gone and turned off this setting . 

We have over 2000 users in Jira, and several automation rules that are critical to our business functioning.

This "feature" feels like a very easy way for our users to unknowingly burn through our Automation usage limits and that would have extremely significant impacts to the larger instance.

Thank you for giving me the control to turn this off, if that wasn't provided we would be having a very different conversation.

[Matt Doar _Adaptavist_]

Neat idea, but allowing users to schedule repeating work shouldn't put the rest of the Jira instance at risk. As Jimmy said, I'd recommend non-Premium customers disable this for now

[Rick Westbrock]

We are on the Continuous release track but I don't see the new global setting which was surprising because the impression I got from the first row of the FAQ table above was that the only reason we wouldn't see it is if we were on the Bundled release track.

[Dirk Lachowski]

@Jimmy Seddon @Matt Doar _Adaptavist_ @Eoin That’s maybe the wrong discussion. The real question is: Why do recurring tasks burn automation credits? Imagine Asana (or Todoist, or Monday,  or whatever) is adding a “recurring tasks fee”. Wouldn’t be smart, right?

Hey Atlassian, I understand that bills need to be paid, but come on, recurring tasks with a price per recurrence? That’s a new level of low. And why would anybody adopt this feature? If i have to pay for it, i can just keep using one of the marketplace add-ons that don’t burn through credits. Or keep my recurring tasks whre they’re right now - in Todoist. Running out of credits is a price that’s too high for convenience. And it’s a broken feature. What if we run out of credits and the next task not recurring because of that is “pay Atlassian bill”? So, what we got is: “Tasks scheduled as recurring MAY recurr, but you won’t know and we won’t tell you. And by the way, we’ve just stopped ALL automations for the next 13 days, but you can add 50 users to fix that - nah, make it 100, just to be sure. And did I mention that you need to be on Premium?”.

So, this is a nice feature, but automations running because of it must not reduce the automation credit count. The thing is, automations are for your customers, we pay for them to automate our stuff. If you need automations for your stuff, I do not see why that’s on my budget - it’s on yours. If you can’t do that, then don’t add that feature. Currently you’re a landlord who’s running his fridge on my energy bill - don’t be that guy.

[Eoin]

Thanks @Lianne Geerlings We've kept the contextual setting of this rule basic for now so this is great feedback on how we can extend it. In the meantime, you can have a rule set up in the automation space that will do exactly what you need. If you are not a project admin, you can ask your project admin to do this for you. 

[Eoin]

Thanks @Jimmy Seddon @Matt Doar _Adaptavist_ We completely understand this train of thought which is why we have provided the global setting to turn this off for non-admins. Our data shows it's very rare for customers today to exceed their usage limits so we are excited with what we can learn from taking this step. We're keen to hear any other feedback you or anyone else has around the admin side of this feature.

[Eoin]

Hi @Rick Westbrock I double checked and it looks like we're still rolling out to a few remaining sites. Apologies for the confusion. You should see it by the end of today.

[Eoin]

Thanks @Dirk Lachowski You'll find a lot of our close competitors are already using consumption based pricing and leverage paid automations to quickly unlock value in the product. And at the end of the day we're not making our users use this feature - there is a choice. We've simply surfaced the existing power of the automation platform contextually in the product. With the exception of where we've opened this up to non-admins, and in this case we've coupled this with a setting to turn it off. Users can absolutely continue to use one of the many marketplace apps that will do this or alternatively create this work manually. 

[Rick Westbrock]

Thank you @Eoin I do see that global setting now. I still don't see the "Set to recur" option under the Actions menu yet but we don't have the new navigation on our site yet so I assume that's why (the Actions button still shows the word instead of just the symbol).

[Dirk Lachowski]

@Eoin 

And at the end of the day we're not making our users use this feature - there is a choice.

But you realize that most of your customers are devs, right? A feature that's not used will be removed because it's a liability. 

We're on Premium, so not really affected, but this is like opening Pandoras box. Let me describe why I do think so:

Jira used to be a tool for developers. Only lately you started to open it for other roles - and the first iteration wasn't really that great, so it quickly vanished only to be respawned as a project type. Nothing wrong so far. But: One of the reasons why adoption for work roles wasn't great was lack of recurring tasks. In fact we tried, missed recurring tasks, tried a marketplace add-on (worst UX ever) and then just returned to Asana / Todoist. And seriously:     

You'll find a lot of our close competitors are already using consumption based pricing

Show me a single mayor player in the work task management field who's using metered pricing for recurring tasks. I'm sure you can find one, but I'm also sure that it's a niche player. The quality of the recurring tasks management is just an important selling point - you have to have it, it's not optional or a payed add-on.

What this signals is:

• Smaller customers are maybe happy with the free offering
• If not, Standard will do 

And now we have a feature that eats credits of non-premium plans.

Metering is all about adding a price tag for something where the average customer accepts that you're proxying costs, so they're ok with paying that price. Nothing wrong with that if you can argue why. Can't see that for recurring tasks though, and if the only argument is "there's a price because we didn't feel like writing some code, so we used automations" - well.

My issue is: What's next? Maybe notifications? Or closing an issue? There's some patterns lately (see the discussion about why ideas hierarchies in JPD are a premium feature, given it's the most requested feature of all). Will every new feature be metered? Is Premium the new Standard? Did we make the right decision when we switched to Atlassian about a year ago? 

It's not about this one feature, I couldn't care less. 

But one last thing:

Users can absolutely continue to use one of the many marketplace apps that will do this or alternatively create this work manually. 

That is by far the most outrageous thing a vendor has said to me in a very long time. You're basically telling me: "If you don't like what we do, go f*** yourself - but stop talking". If this would be a sales meeting, you'd have lost us here. 

[Eoin]

Hi @Dirk Lachowski I'd like to be clear that wasn't meant in a malicious way. Apologies if my tone was misleading above. I'm conveying that this is not a change we are forcing on users. This is an efficiency style change where we are offering customers a quicker way to achieve something they could already do. And we have some awesome marketplace apps that we rely heavily on to deliver supplementary experiences - we see this as a massive strength for Jira that we have such a strong marketplace. 

I'll reference Monday as a tool that does something similar. But you'll also see Microsoft are moving to consumption based pricing more broadly. Although, I don't want to get hung up on this point because they are not the reason why we have created a contextual experience for scheduling work through the automation platform. I also want to call out Jira is much cheaper than our closest competitors so hopefully it can be taken in good faith here we are not trying to price gouge.

I also want to allay any fears that any existing features would solely become automations in the future. This absolutely will not be the case.

Would you want to catch up on zoom and we can talk more at length about your feedback? You can email me on eryan@atlassian.com and we can set up a time that suits.

Cheers

[Eoin]

Hey @Rick Westbrock There isn't a dependency on the new navigation. Would you be able to send me a screenshot of the menu (in the work item view) to eryan@atlassian.com Thanks!

[Rick Westbrock]

@Eoin I just sent you an e-mail. The really odd thing is that it turns out I can see the recur option in some projects but not others.

[Rick Westbrock]

Turns out my problem seemed to be browser caching (most likely) so if anyone else runs into the same thing where you don't see the recur option everywhere a force refresh (Ctrl-Shift-R or Cmd-Shift-R) while viewing the work item might help.