I want to make a automation that send a slack message with mention when mentioned in the comment

[藤野 珠輝]

Hi,

I am trying to make an automation rule that does below:

- Triger: When commented

- If: the comment includes mention

- Then: send a slack message with mention to the specific user mentioned in the jira comment

---------------------------------
Currently the rule I made look like the picture below.

This automation works but the problem is the use of if-else condition.
When one of the if-condition is met, the following if-conditions are ignored. Therefore, this rule does not work when I want to mention more than one person. 

Are there anyway to fix this? Also, I know the way I made the rule is not very practical, so I am looking for the way to simplify the rule by using variables or look up table.

I appreciate any help! Thank you in advance.

[Bill Sheboy · Accepted solution]

Hi @藤野　珠輝 -- Welcome to the Atlassian Community!

Rather than using an if / else structure, you can simplify your rule to use a Created Table, Created Variable, and Advanced Branch.  For example:

• action: Create Lookup Table, with a row for each user.  The "key" would be their account id and the "value" would be their Slack id.  Let's assume that is named tblSlackUserList
• action: Create Variable to extract all of the mentioned users' account id values into a comma-separated values list.  Let's assume that is named varUserList
• advanced branch: to split your created variable into each item for looping with {{varUserList.split(",")}}  Let's assume the variable is varUser
  • action: send your Slack message to the user, getting their Slack id with:
    • {{tblSlackUserList.get(varUser)}}

This method will work for up to 200 users, as that is the current limit for the Lookup Table.

Here is more documentation on those techniques to learn more:

• https://community.atlassian.com/t5/Automation-articles/New-Automation-action-Create-lookup-table/ba-p/2311333
• https://community.atlassian.com/t5/Automation-articles/Update-Create-lookup-table-action-improvements/ba-p/2427798
• https://support.atlassian.com/cloud-automation/docs/jira-automation-actions/#Create-variable
• https://community.atlassian.com/t5/Automation-articles/Branching-over-smart-values-in-Jira-Automation/ba-p/1741935

Kind regards,
Bill

[藤野 珠輝]

Hi Bill,

Thank you so much for your answer and sorry for my late response.

I built the rule based on your suggestion. 
I am not sure what to put on the smart value for varUserList, to make a comma-separated list.

I attached the picture of the current rule. I really appreciate if you can spot when I should change - currently even if the user in the look up table is mentioned, slack message will not be sent.

[Bill Sheboy]

Consider adding a split(" ") before the match to improve the chances of a match when there are newlines and other formatting in the comment.  They try re-testing.

If that does not help, please post an image of the updated rule and the audit log details from the rule execution.

[藤野 珠輝]

Thank you. I tried to follow your advice but since I define "varUser" in Advanced branching using "varUserList" so thought it is not possible to put split before the match. Can you explain a little more about what you meant?

Also, I removed "if: compare two values" then, audit log shows an error:

Error rendering smart-values when executing this rule:

Failed to get value for issue.comment.last.body.match("\[~accountid:(.*)\]): {{issue.comment.last.body.match("\[~accountid:(.*)\])}}

it seems the smart value in Create variable is wrong. Do you have any idea how I should fix this?

Thank you in advance.

[Bill Sheboy]

First, your regular expression in the match() is missing the closing quotation mark, which is causing that error.

Here is the expression I suggested, and I added distinct at the end.  That will handle cases where the same user is mentioned multiple times in the same comment.

{{issue.comment.last.body.split(" ").match("\[~accountid:(.*)\]").distinct}}

[藤野 珠輝]

Thank  you Bill.
Now successfully I got multiple messages sent in slack when multiple users mentioned in the Jira comment.

I still have one issue. Only the first value in the lookup table is correctly appeared in the slack messages.

Let's say I have two users (the first picture), and I mentioned them in a comment.
But slack messages look like the second picture. Only the first value is correctly sent.

Any idea where I should fix this? I attached the smart value for branch (the third picture) and the content of slack message (the fourth picture).

I really appreciate your help!

[Bill Sheboy]

Okay, I removed the prior message, as here is the problem:

{{issue.comment.last.body.split(" ").match("\[~accountid:(.*)\]").distinct}}

The result of that expression is a list...but we stick it into a variable.  That then joins the values with commas AND adds spaces to make it more people-friendly for reading.

As a result, each variable (after the first one) in the advanced branch as a leading space.

We wanted that expression without extra spaces as input for processing, and so we can override by explicitly adding our own join:

{{issue.comment.last.body.split(" ").match("\[~accountid:(.*)\]").distinct.join(",")}}

That will make input that can cleanly be handled by the advanced branch's use of split().

[藤野 珠輝]

Hi Bill,

Thank you so much for your suggestion. It worked like a charm!!
I cannnot appreciate you enough!

[Bill Sheboy]

Awesome; I am glad to learn that helped!

If this solves the remaining questions, please consider marking this one "answered" as that will help others with similar needs find solutions faster.  Thanks!

[藤野 珠輝]

Forgot to mention -

my Jira project is controlled by my company so I cannot do some setting that needs organization admin.