How to identify one board from another within a project for automation rules?

[Scot McGavin]

I have multiple boards within a project (space) for different teams.  Each has their own board.  When creating new work items, I want a field like component or category to autopopulate uniquely for the right team based on the board they are on when creating the item.

I have tried to set up Component to do this and it does not work according to the Atlassian documentation (Pre-populate the Component/s field while creating an issue from the Board View. | Jira and Jira Service Management | Atlassian Support) so I am trying to use an automation rule, but I don't see any way to identify a board as part of the scope for the rule.  I can identify the project (space), but not which board within that space.

We are using Jira Software Cloud and currently are doing a trial of Premium.

[John Funk · Accepted solution]

Hi Scot - Welcome to the Atlassian Community!

The board is just a view of selected work items in your Jira instance. So, there is not a way to say this one done on this board or that board. However, each board has a specific filter used to determine which cards show on which boards. Therefore, that's what you would use to most likely determine "which board" it was on - it would be a series of Conditions in the automation rule. 

I hope that helps get you on a path to a solution. Feel free to ask more questions for clarification. 

[Scot McGavin]

Thanks John.  I am looking at a bit of a chicken and egg situation. I am trying to use a single space (project) for multiple teams to track their work and have a different board for each.  The tickets created by each team would have a field set to make them unique from the others, and thus easily filtered by that field.  This will work fine as long as that field gets filled correctly out for a given team every time a new ticket is created.  The problem is human error ensures this won't happen always, so it needs to be automatic.  I tried to use the 'component' field mechanism, but it is not working as I thought (perhaps because this was for Data Center and not Cloud).

My second choice would be to use an automation rule to set a field value when a ticket is created from a particular board, but I can't figure out how to define what board the ticket is being created from.

What other alternatives are there? It doesn't seem like the correct design to have to set each team up in a separate space (project).  

Thanks in advance for any suggestions!

[John Funk]

Well, I would say that the Component is still the best route to go. Make the field Required on entry. Surely they know when team they are on and can select that. There just isn't a way right now to say a ticket was created on board A or B because the ticket is just created against a project and that process is fairly independent of the board. 

How many users and teams are we talking about? 

So, it's probably more education that anything. You could create a dashboard or query to check every so often manually to look at the Reporter name and the Component created. Then when someone does it wrong, remind them to choose the right team and hopefully that would cut down on future mistakes. 

[Bill Sheboy]

Hi @Scot McGavin 

I believe the automatic set of the Component feature works from the backlog when the filter is unambiguous and the field is on the work item create views.

For other paths, a brute-force approach with an automation rule would be to add a check on the people compared to the {{initiator}} smart value, and use that to set the Component to the correct team's value.  This could be done using either:

• a Lookup Table for easier rule maintenance...although the rule could still be "brittle" when someone forgets to update the list (mapping people to team's Component)
• assign the people to Jira User Groups, and then use a User Condition with an if / else condition block to set the Component based upon the group the initiator is in (i.e., User who triggered the event which started the rule)

Kind regards,
Bill

[Scot McGavin]

Thanks Bill.  I appreciate the suggestion for how to check users and if requiring the field is not sufficient, I may have to consider that.  I am guessing I won't have to go that route once the teams get used to having to select it.

[Trudy Claspill]

Hello @Scot McGavin 

Welcome to the Atlassian community.

What are the filters used by each team's board? What are the fields and their values used in those filters to distinguish that an issue should be displayed in one board vs. another?

I note that the article you referenced says that it applies only to Jira Data Center while the tags on your post say you are using Jira Cloud. Here is the Jira Cloud version of the KB:

https://support.atlassian.com/jira/kb/auto-population-of-component-value-during-issue-creation-in-jira-software-boards/

Do note that the auto-populating of Component works only when only one Component value is included in the board filter, and per the article the work item has to be created from the backlog, not from the board.

[Scot McGavin]

Thanks Trudy, thanks for your help.  I missed that the solution I initially tried to auto-populate the component was for Data Center only and I am on Cloud, so your link was helpful.  As noted above, I am trying to use a single space (project) for multiple teams to track their work and have a different board for each.  The tickets created by each team would have a field set to make them unique from the others, and thus easily filtered by that field.  This will work fine as long as that field gets filled correctly out for a given team every time a new ticket is created.  The problem is human error ensures this won't happen always, so it needs to be automatic.

There is no other critiera that I can reliably identify to indicate which team the item is being created for, as we have some creators on multiple teams.

I was able to demonstrate the the component is correctly populated when the ticket is created from the + below the backlog, when on the backlog board, but when on that same board and clicking the "Create +", the component field is left blank.

How do others solve this issue? Grateful for any ideas I can use!

[Md_ Abrarul Huda]

I am a little confused on the main question and the first paragraph. Are you trying to identify the board somehow or just populate the board with the correct ticket? See if this helps at all...

I manage 2 squads of developers in a single Space. Both squads have their own board. I have created a custom dropdown field to select the squad when creating the ticket or during solution alignment.

Both boards have their own separate jql query. So when I assign the squad from dropdown it shows the specific ticket only on that board. In any stage of the ticket, when you select the team from dropdown, the assigned jql (in board) with filter the ticket on it's own. No additional automation required for this.

You can also have another common board as well to show all tickets, which you can use as backlog and to define the teams.

[Scot McGavin]

Thank you for your response Abrarul.  The problem I am trying to avoid is the inevitable human error that sometimes the field to define which team (component or other) may be left blank or set incorrectly.  I may try to make the field required and I expect that will solve 99% if the human error issues.

[Md_ Abrarul Huda]

That would solve a lot of the problem. You could make the field mandatory to make a specific transition in the workflow.