Automate deleting comments after transition to other status

[Marloes Verschoor]

Hi there,

I'm creating a sort of weekplanner, where issues repeat every week. I'm using a Kanban board, in a company managed project.

I have the following statusses:

- To Do

- In Progress

- Done

- To Repeat (hidden on the board)

If a new week/workday begins, I already automated that issues transition from the status To Repeat to To Do. When the issues are transitioned, I also want to automatically delete the comments from that issue.

I tried to create the automation in the attachment, however this doesn't work. I can't find anything on what smart value I have to use, can someone help me with this?

[Mark Segall · Accepted solution]

Hi @Marloes Verschoor and welcome to the community!

Issues aren't meant to be recycled over and over.  Instead, I would recommend cloning them and setting your Kanban board to simply drop the closed issues from view over time. 

So, instead of transitioning to "Repeat To Do", you could set it up to clone as the old issue transitions to Done:

• TRIGGER: Issue Transitioned (To Done)
• ACTION: Clone issue

The clone will be created with the same summary, description, etc. but with a clean comment history and status of To Do

[Marloes Verschoor]

Hi @Mark Segall ,

Thanks, that would also be a good solution. Then I would also like to delete the old issue after cloning, so that I don't get a large back log after a while.

I now created this rule, but I think I still do something wrong, as nothing happens when I move an issue from status To Repeat to the status To Do. Could you check if my rule needs to be adjusted?

[Mark Segall]

This is likely because you don't have the Allow Rule Trigger checkbox set on the Rule Details screen.  However, I would question why you need the extra step here.  Instead of using the status "To Repeat", I would simply clone the issue when the previous issue is moved to done.

Additionally, if your Kanban is set up right, you don't need to worry about deleting issues. You can simply drop them from view or change the board filter to something like:

project = xxx AND (status != Done OR (status = Done and resolved >=-3d)) 

 This will drop anything from your board after 3 days which allows time for recovering from an "oops" moment before it drops from the board view.

[Marloes Verschoor]

Thanks, I'll check that.

I'm still new to Jira, I appreciate the help!

[Dave Mathijs]

Hi @Marloes Verschoor welcome to the Atlassian Community!

Deleting all comments from an issue is not possible via automation.

Rather than re-using the same issue every week through the workflow, would it be accepted to create a new issue for each week and leave the issue from the previous week closed?