JIRA automated e-mail with table containing empty smart value fails

[Agnes Bodor]

Hello All,

I would like to set up an automated JIRA e-mail sending, where the content of the e-mail has a table filled with smart values.

Some of the smart values may not have a value/be empty, e.g. I want to provide the last comment of the item.

The reference to the value in the body of the e-mail does not cause any issue:

{{trigerissue.customfield_1234}}

However, if I add it to the cell of the table, the rule fails.

I tried{{trigerissue.customfield_1234|No comment}}

However, this did not work neither in the body of the e-mail nor in the table.

Any idea why the same value in the table causes an issue, and how to resolve it?

Thank you in advance for the help!

[Bill Sheboy]

Hi @Agnes Bodor 

Context is important for automation rule questions.  Would you please post the following to help the community offer better suggestions?  Thank you!

• What is the type of your custom field?
• An image of your complete rule in a single, continuous image for context
• An image of the rule action where you are using that smart value expression
• The complete text of the expression you are using
• An image of the audit log details showing the rule execution

Kind regards,
Bill

[Agnes Bodor]

Hello,

Unfortunately, I cannot attach those.

It's a manually triggered rule; I am using custom e-mail sending.

I added the table in the rich text format through the table option at the top.

I tested adding any smart value field to the table, for which its value was not set, and it causes the email sending to fail with "Invalid value provided for required field:body". 

Tested with the last comment, as well as with the due date. The problem is not related to the field type. For any of the values I tried, once the value is set, the email is successfully sent.

[Bill Sheboy]

Hi @Agnes Bodor 

Short answer: You have found a defect with this new rule action / smart value parsing.  I checked the JAC backlog and do not see this defect / symptom.  If you are on a paid Jira license level, please work with your Jira Product Admin to submit a defect to Atlassian Support here: https://support.atlassian.com/contact/#/

For a workaround, please see below.

Without seeing the specifics of your rule, it is difficult for the community to confirm we are "seeing" what you are trying.  My current hypothesis is...

• you are using the newer, Send Customized Email action
• in the email content, you have selected the table macro from the tool bar in the action
• in one of the table cells, you are trying to use the default value syntax for a smart value {{triggerIssue.myField|EMPTY}} and that field is empty / null value

When I do that, I also get this error in the audit log:

Send customized email 25/11/2025, 10:05:16

Invalid value provided for the required field: body

Further testing the default value syntax outside of the table macro does not cause an error, although it also does not return the default.  This indicates in the new Send Customized Email action, the smart value collapses to a null value with no default, which can break the table macro handling.  Outside of the table macro, the default is also not used, leading to a null value.

For a workaround, you could use the longer format of conditional expression to supply a default value in each table cell.  For example:

{{if(exists(triggerIssue.myField), triggerIssue.myField, "EMPTY")}}

Please note some field types will pass the exists() tests even when they are an empty string (versus a null value).  If you encounter one of those, please let me know and we can adjust the workaround.  Thanks!

[Aaron Pavez _ServiceRocket_]

Hi @Agnes Bodor 

Can you share with us a screenshot of the whole automation, please?

Regards - Aaron