Clear Custom Field Prior to Transition Screen

steven.mccaffrey

What I'm trying to do is clear a custom field that is contained within the transition screen on specific transitions. 

In my UAT environment this was easily completed by adding a post-function Clear field(s) but when I used the exact same method in my PROD instance it waits till after the transition screen to perform this action. 

Both are on the same project, transition, transition screen, workflow, and ranking in the post-function(1st). Can someone let me know how'd they achieve the result I'm looking for in my PROD instance.

We're using JIRA Server. 

Earl McCutcheon

Hi @steven.mccaffrey ,

Thanks for reaching out, and looking at this, it sounds like you have an additional add-on installed in the UAT system that you do not have installed in the Prod system, that is clearing out the field, as natively in Jira the post function is triggering the action after the Transition screen and there is not a workflow feature that has the capability to trigger an action at the start of the transition prior to launching the screen.

As covered in the "Advanced workflow configuration" Documentation the native workflow options avaliable are:

• Triggers – transition Jira issues when certain events occur in a connected development tool, such as Atlassian's Bitbucket or Stash.
• Conditions – check that a transition should be performed by the user.
• Validators – check that any input to the transition (for example, by a user) is valid, before the transition is performed.
• Post functions – carry out additional processing, after a transition is performed.
• Properties – are key-value pairs that can be used to further customize transitions.

I would recomend checking the installed add-ons to see if you have any other add-ons installed that could executing additional behaviors in the applications workflow like ScriptRunner for Jira , Automation for jira, or Power scripts to name a few that I believe could be used to complete this action.

Another possibility that could be occuring with native post functions to accomplish this, is that there could be a double transition being executed.  Similar to the above mentioned option where there may be an add-on at play that could be automating this one as well but there could be a workflow customization that would not be visable on the front end that may have been applied as a customization in the Workflow XML causing the issue to go through a double transition state automatically, where the first transition is clearing the field with a post function and no screen then the second transition is automatically fired with the screen and the field will already have been cleared, I know that Script Runner has a script called "Fast-track transition an issue" that could do this but you can also customize the workflow XML adding a auto="true" value as described in the thread What is your most valuable Jira "trick" 

Regards,
Earl