Sign Off procedure for Release candidate

[Orily]

Hey guys,

every time my organization is about to release a version a slow manually & painful process starts when 3 different Heads of department need to sign off (each) release before I as a Jira admin can release it from the release candidate pull.

Does anyone have a suggestion on how to automotive this flow?

I've built a dashboard and every release had hundreds of items so I need a simple and overall solution to all of the release package and not each ticket individually.

I'm using the Jira cloud server - I would be happy to hear any suggestions! 

[Mark Chaimungkalanont · Accepted solution]

I think you'd use a ticket to represent a release like Jack suggested with addition of Jira Automation on top (https://www.atlassian.com/software/jira/features/automation)

If you had:

• Issue type called "Release"
• Custom fields to track all your dates
  • "Release due date"
  • "Verification due date" etc
• Custom fields to track the managers on the Release
• Varioud status of the ticket Release ticket
  • Pending
  • Kicked off
  • etc.

Then set up a bunch of rules:

Rule 1: Trigger initial email

1. Scheduled trigger to run daily based on a JQL: 

   issuetype = Release AND status = Pending AND "Release due date" > 7d

2. Email action to manager 1 (can be a field on issue) with a message to transition the Release ticket into "kicked off" status
3. Edit issue action: here you can set the "Release kick off deadline" to be 4 days after see docs :
   

   {{now.plusDays(4)}}

Rule 2: Trigger verification

1. Trigger on issue transition: Listen for the Release ticket moving to "Kicked off" (manager 1 kicking this off
2. Email action to manager 2: Saying they have 2 days to verify the issue with a link to the issue and the due date
3. Edit issue action: here you can set the "Verification due date" etc.

Hope that helps

[Orily]

It Does, Thank you..Ill try it and lyk

[Jack Brickey · Accepted solution]

What about creating a task for every release that has three approval sub-tasks assigned to each dept head? Use automation (addon for server) if you want to notify you when all sub-tasks are complete or something similar. You might even not assign the tasks to the dept heads until you are ready to release. Of course some of this depends on the details of your process, e.g. what do the dept heads assess to approve/reject.

[Orily]

I guess adding a manual ticket is plausible but I was aiming for something more automated that won't create any more tickets to the hundreds we already have in each release.

anyways I was thinking big, something like:

Automation: send manager 1 a week before the release due date email to push a button that this version is verified on he's behalf - and a count down clock that ends 4 days (after the email was sent)

After this button was pushed  by manager 1 - content gets freezer for this release and manager #2 receives a message that he has 2 days to verify and push a verification butten

etc...

[Daniel Ebers]

There are solutions available from marketplace like Group Sign Off and others which are capable of a broad range of such feature - but I cannot say for sure if every aspect of your requirement can be met (I haven't tested it).
Most likely you would be able to implement parts with it, and garnish your process with some Automation rules.
Especially for the due dates / countdown I am not sure if this can be done out of the box.
As always - the recommendation would be to start small and to add features as first success is visible with the one or another solution you want to go with.

[Orily]

I checked it out. Its a long shot... I've embraced the manual ticket flow for now 🤷🏼‍♀️