Can Jira tell when an item has been scheduled for a period on a calendar?

[Rob Horan]

Lets assume for a moment you are a member of an organization that has certain blocks of calendar days set aside as "freeze" days in which no code should be committed.  Is it possible to have Jira check a calendar and if a due date (or other date field) falls on one of these days take some sort of corrective or escalation action?

Add ons & plugins welcome, just trying to find an idea.

Open to Cloud or DataCenter or both.

[Hana Kučerová · Accepted solution]

Hi @Rob Horan ,

in general I can imagine using some sort of automation app (Automation for Jira, ScriptRunner, ...). If you update the issue somehow, you can react on it and do some actions, but the most important question is - what would you like to do if the conditions are met and it is a "freeze" day? 

[Rob Horan]

Actually, in my mind, the action to take is the least important aspect of this.  Being able to check date fields against a calendar for a condition is the biggest concern.  The rest is just a standard action. Prevent issue creation, or send an email, or modify an issue field.  (That hasn't been decided yet) In any case, it would be something simple.  

[Hana Kučerová]

@Rob Horan 

I can see two solution concepts using Automation and triggers:

• use Scheduled trigger and check existing issues using JQL
• use Issue created or Issue updated trigger and react on issue activity

But the action is also very important. It is easy to send email or modify the issue somehow, but prevention of issue creation is not possible using automation. In that case you would need to use another application like ScriptRunner for server.

[Rob Horan]

Preventing issue creation could also mean cancellation if that's too difficult.  Really the part that concerns me at the moment is finding a way to identify the condition based on a calendar.  I'm not sure how those options would work though.  Is there a way to pull this info from an external calendar, like Outlook or Google?

[Hana Kučerová]

@Rob Horan I cannot imagine getting the data from external calendar.

How complicated is your blocking days pattern and how often does it change? Like it is: every Monday or this could be various days in year and changes from week to week and also Holidays have some impact etc.

Thank you.

[Rob Horan]

I can't say - this is an idea I'm exploring on behalf of another party, and I don't have that info.  Right now its just speculative.

[Hana Kučerová]

@Rob Horan To be honest - If I were you and somebody asked me to do such a thing, I would recommend not to do it.

You can create some custom app or add some groovy scripts to help you handle the situation, but still this doesn't feel right for me.

So, I would say, yes, in general, it should be possible, but it depends on many factors and it could end up doing something really complicated.

[Rob Horan]

Everyone has their requirements, and sometimes a complex, custom solution is required for customers.