Automated Email to Managers Containing JQL Results

[Mike Fink]

hey all,

I'm trying to craft a weekly email to go out to managers when their software engineers reach an upper limit of Bugs assigned to them. 

Trigger: Weekly scheduled event
Action: Lookup Issues (search for issues using JQL)

Condition: If # >10 per Assignee

Below are some screenshots of my current attempt. Pretty sure I'm approaching this the wrong way but I'm not sure of the best sequence of steps to make this work.

Then: Email Managers

[Bill Sheboy]

Hi @Mike Fink 

First thing, how does the team work on defects?  Are they really assigning up to 10 for each person?  Might a dashboard showing the open, assigned defects counts be better if the team has a daily standup?

Regarding your scenario in a rule...

How many possible assignees do you have?  Let's say it is less than 10 and you want one email communication...In that case I would recommend checking each possible assignee, one by one, store the results, and then rollup to one email.  For example:

• action: lookup issues with your JQL plus assignee = one of your targets (e.g. Alice)
• advanced compare condition to check if {{lookupIssues.size|0}} is > 10
• action: create a variable for Alice with
  • name: varAlice
  • value: {{lookupIssues.first.assignee.displayName}}

Repeat that for each possible assignee, and then include them all in the single email.  The limit with that approach is the number of components in a rule (i.e. 60) and this would take 3 components for each user.

If you are okay with sending multiple emails (one for each assignee), an alternative would be to walk each one in an advanced branch, as follows:

• action: lookup issues with your JQL
• advanced compare condition to check if {{lookupIssues.size|0}} is > 0
• advanced branch: on {{lookupIssues.assignee.accountId.distinct}}
  • action: lookup issues with your JQL plus assignee = the branch variable
  • advanced compare condition to check if {{lookupIssues.size|0}} is > 10
  • action: send the email, referencing {{lookupIssues.first.assignee.displayName}}

Kind regards,
Bill

[Mike Fink]

hi @Bill Sheboy

Thanks for the help. To answer your question, yes each team member can be assigned up to and more than 10 bugs to work on. The policy is that after 10 bugs they are barred from doing any other work until they get below that number again.

There are more than 60 possible assignees so the multiple components per assignee approach probably wouldn't work so well. Also, there can be as many as 20 assignees currently in "bug jail" at any given time, so copying all the managers on that many daily emails would probably cause some spam problems. This is why I wanted just a summary of individuals who meet this criteria on a daily basis.

I actually already have automations set up to send emails to assignees who have over 10 bugs - the missing piece is the alerting the managers part now.

Cheers,

Mike

[Mike Fink]

@Bill Sheboy 

I am trying to recreate what you describe in the second half of your answer (multiple emails, one for each assignee) but coming up short. In particular, this section has me stumped:

• advanced compare condition to check if {{lookupIssues.size|0}} is > 0
• advanced branch: on {{lookupIssues.assignee.accountId.distinct}}
  • action: lookup issues with your JQL plus assignee = the branch variable
  • advanced compare condition to check if {{lookupIssues.size|0}} is > 10
  • action: send the email, referencing {{lookupIssues.first.assignee.displayName}}

This is what I have:

[Bill Sheboy]

Hi, and sorry for the delay in responding.

For the lookup inside of the branch, you will use your earlier JQL and add this:

original JQL AND assignee = {{varBranch}}

Now you can test the {{lookupIssues.size|0}} on that result to determine if the specific user for {{varBranch}} has more than 10 issues assigned.