Jira Data Center Automation: Sum Custom Field from Linked Epics and Update Parent Issue

[Neven Plakalovic]

Hello Community,

We are using Jira Data Center (not Cloud) and I need help creating an automation rule that does the following:

• For a parent issue (e.g., an Initiative), sum the values of a specific custom field from all linked Epics.
• Write this total into a custom field on the parent issue.

Is this possible with Jira Automation for Data Center?
If yes, what would be the best approach (smart values, branching, or scripting)?
If not, would ScriptRunner or another app be required?

Any examples or best practices would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you!

[Victor Law - Ricksoft]

Hi @Neven Plakalovic

Welcome to the community!

Yes, it is doable via Automation, and Atlassian has published an article on how to achieve that using the Story Points as an example:

https://www.atlassian.com/software/jira/automation-template-library/sum-up-story-points

Thank you.

[Neven Plakalovic]

Hi @Victor Law - Ricksoft 

I`v tried but it does not work. 

[Bill Sheboy]

Hi @Neven Plakalovic -- Welcome to the Atlassian Community!

This scenario is easier for Jira Cloud with the Lookup Issues action in rules.  However, in Jira Server and Data Center, that action does not support most fields yet.  Here is the suggestion to add the feature: https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/JIRAAUTOSERVER-877

One workaround for this is using the REST API endpoints and the Send Web Request action to access the custom fields and sum them.  For more details, please see this post I added to an article on summing fields into a parent:

https://community.atlassian.com/forums/Jira-articles/How-Can-I-Sum-Up-Multiple-Issues-into-a-Parent-Number-Field/bc-p/2883071#M16701

Kind regards,
Bill

[Andreas Haaken _APTIS_]

Hi @Neven Plakalovic , 

in general you may do this with automations or scripts by other apps. But before you start on this I would like to point you to the fact that the data might be very volatile. 

If you have a lot of issues, that are changing over time, all needs to invalidate the aggregated data and might be wrong or outdated. 

what do you need to do with the data? consume somewhere or just see and measure? 

If you want to use automations for this, you need to use a trigger and then roll up the data down to all levels. Either you do this on every Epic for their children and then to the initiative. And this for every change on the data.

With Script Runner or other tools (Like JWT) , you might define Calculated Custom fields that store the data for all children and cascade it up to all needed levels. Then you need to take care of update triggers that re-calc the fields. imo a calculation that goes down a whole structure is very complex and tends to errors.

in case you just need the data to display in progressbars budgets etc. you might consider to user our app: ESU KPI and reporting for Jira. We calculate the data live and show all metrics in a panel or on a dash board. 

Hope that helps to get to the next step. :)

Andreas 

Disclaimer:

I am the PO of ESU by APTIS so my content might be biased ;)   

[Neven Plakalovic]

Hi Andreas, 

we are working with SAP2JIRA means at the projest begin we transfer the Estimates from SAP Network Activitys to Jira Epic. ("Design Mechanik" SAP Network Activity to "Design Mechanik" Jira Epic). 

The Problem is that we dont have Total Estimate (only splited) and therefore we would like to have it on Jira Project. 

This data normally dont change.