nav[aria-label="Primary Navigation"] { padding: 0; & ul { list-style: none; width: 100%; display: flex; flex-direction: row; justify-content: start; align-items: start; gap: 30px; padding: 0; & li { margin: 0; } & ul li { list-style: none; } } }

Can Automation for Jira detect when Issue a) Added to Open Sprint or b) Removed from Open Sprint?

Doug Levitt_tunij3

We are interested in using Automation for Jira to detect when:

a) an issue is Added to Open Sprint or

b) an issue is Removed from Open Sprint

When that occurs, we would like to set a Custom Field (e.g. Sprint-Change-Status), so we can issue a report. Then, when a Sprint is created/completed, we would clear out that field. Then, rinse/repeat.

Is this possible?

Thanks,

Doug Levitt

Accepted answers

All comments

Bill Sheboy

Hi @Doug Levitt

Looking at the smart values and triggers, my guess would be "yes", although I haven't tried it. It might look like this for added after sprint start:

Trigger: field value changed for sprint
Condition: {{now}} is greater than {{issue.sprint.startDate}}
Action: edit your custom field that you noted

For removed before sprint end, try {{now}} is less than {{#changelog.sprint}}{{from}}{{endDate}}{{/}} for the condition.

That *might* access the prior value of the sprint field's endDate, although I am unclear if that would be the most recent sprint (for things that carry over to multiple sprints.) Please take a look at the list functions to see how those might help for the sprint field:

https://support.atlassian.com/jira-software-cloud/docs/smart-values-lists/

Best regards,

Bill

Doug Levitt_tunij3

Hi @Bill Sheboy

Thanks for your answer. As I am playing with this, I am realizing how much more complex this is. As I can add something to a Sprint, but that Sprint may not be an ACTIVE Sprint. Also, an issue can belong to multiple sprints (e.g. it was in an ACTIVE Sprint, the Sprint was CLOSED and the issue was pushed out, then it was placed into another ACTIVE Sprint).

Below is an example JSON returned by Jira:

customfield_10006: [
"com.atlassian.greenhopper.service.sprint.Sprint@be57324[completeDate=2020-08-18T23:35:08.224Z,endDate=2020-06-12T00:24:00.000Z,goal=Goal1,id=1954,name=AgileExample 0,rapidViewId=260,sequence=1954,startDate=2020-05-30T00:24:00.014Z,state=CLOSED]",
"com.atlassian.greenhopper.service.sprint.Sprint@7108339e[completeDate=<null>,endDate=2020-08-31T23:41:00.000Z,goal=Goal2,id=2050,name=AgileExample 1,rapidViewId=260,sequence=2037,startDate=2020-08-18T23:41:02.974Z,state=ACTIVE]"
],

I wasn't quite certain how to "grab" the name/state of the "latest" copy (which is the 2nd one in the list).

Any ideas how to format the smart value to grab the name and state?

As a note:

{{issue.sprint.name}} >>> AgileExample 0, AgileExample 1
{{issue.sprint.state}} >>>

{{issue.sprint.goal}} >>> Goal1, Goal2

I am not quite certain why {{issue.sprint.state}} is EMPTY.

Thanks,

Doug

Jira Guru

Hi @Doug Levitt

Try this:

For issues added to a Sprint

Add a trigger that looks for field change in Sprint
Add a Re-Fetch Issue Data
Add a Condition and select JQL query for this and add the following query
sprint in OpenSprints()
Add an action to set a field with a value as per your requirement.

For issues removed from a Sprint

Add a trigger that looks for field change in Sprint
Add a Re-Fetch Issue Data
Add a Condition and select JQL query for this and add the following query
sprint not in OpenSprints() OR Sprint is EMPTY
Add an action to set a field with a value as per your requirement.

Bill Sheboy

Hi Doug,

These smart values work when trying to compare the changed issue the sprint:

{{issue.sprint.startDate.max}} This would be the start of the latest sprint.
{{issue.sprint.endDate.max}} This would be the end of the latest sprint.

You should be able to compare these to the updateDate (or now) in the condition to determine scope add or removes.

Best regards,

Bill

Doug Levitt_tunij3

@William Sheboy

Thanks for the reply. I am on Jira Cloud and for some reason this is only partially working for me.

I have a Issue that was removed from a Completed Sprint and is currently in a Future Sprint.

Below is what I see in the JSON:

customfield_10006: [
"com.atlassian.greenhopper.service.sprint.Sprint@479cd7b[completeDate=2020-08-18T23:35:08.224Z,endDate=2020-06-12T00:24:00.000Z,goal=Tad da,id=1954,name=AgileExample 0,rapidViewId=260,sequence=1954,startDate=2020-05-30T00:24:00.014Z,state=CLOSED]",
"com.atlassian.greenhopper.service.sprint.Sprint@29865826[completeDate=<null>,endDate=<null>,goal=Goal: 2,id=2037,name=AgileExample 2,rapidViewId=260,sequence=2050,startDate=<null>,state=FUTURE]"
],

For debugging purposes, my automation simply writes out the following to Slack:

Issue {{issue.url}}

Sprint {{issue.sprint.max}}
Name {{issue.sprint.name.max}}
Start Date {{issue.sprint.startDate.max}}
State {{issue.sprint.state.max}}
End Date {{issue.sprint.endDate.max}}
Id {{issue.sprint.id.max}}
Goal {{issue.sprint.goal.max}}

Below is what I see in Slack:

Sprint
Name
Start Date 2020-05-30T00:24:00.0+0000
State
End Date 2020-06-12T00:24:00.0+0000
Id 2037
Goal

For whatever reason, I am not getting some of the values. Most confusingly, the State is blank. And, I really want to see the state information (as simply adding an Issue to a Sprint is not enough). I want to know if that Sprint is ACTIVE.

Any ideas what i am doing wrong?

Doug

Doug Levitt_tunij3

@Jira Guru

Thanks for the reply. The added to a Sprint makes sense. Thanks.

But, I don't think the removed from a Sprint will work. Imagine I have 3 Sprints -

- Sprint 1 is Active

- Sprint 2 is Future

- Sprint 3 is Future

I only want to count it as being removed when it is removed from an Active Sprint. I was wondering if there was a reliable way to say, "OK Now it is in Sprint 3, but was it changed from Sprint 2 (Future) or Sprint 1 (Active)". As I only want to mark it as removed if it came from an Active Sprint.

Any further thoughts would be appreciated.

Doug

Jira Guru

Hi @Doug Levitt

In that case try adding the following condition before the re-fetch issue data step and see if that helps

Add a Condition and select JQL query for this and add the following query
sprint in OpenSprints()

Doug Levitt_tunij3

Hi @Jira Guru :

Thanks. I will try that. But (based upon prior automations I have written), I don't see how this will return the prior state (that is, the sprint status before the change was made).

Thanks again for the advice!

Doug

Kavitha Shellikeri

hi @Doug Levitt I am looking to have the same added to my project, were you able to figure out way to add a rule to add a label when the issue gets removed from an open sprint?

Doug Levitt_tunij3

@Kavitha Shellikeri

I abandoned the effort, because of all the corner cases. I ended up implementing a mechanism to simply track when Product Backlog Items (PBI) were added to a Sprint after the start of a Sprint.

As you can see, we track:

- Sprint # (which is a sequential #)
- Date Added
- # of Days Added after Start of Sprint
- Reason

The first 3 are set by an automation.

Sprint Anomaly Tracking.jpg

We then visualize this on our metrics dashboards.

Tracking Over Time.jpg

The mechanism is not perfect. As teams can elect to add PBIs After the Start of Sprint if there is excess capacity (i.e. all planned items were done and they have spare capacity to pull in more work). We could create different charts, based upon the Reason (which is not always set).

Also, as you can see in the above example, a PBI was added very late into one Sprint, but not completed until the next Sprint. Likewise, it is possible for a PBI to be added, then pulled, then added again. The corner cases are endless.

I hope this helps.

Doug

Johnny Mon

Hi All,

I posted my solution in another Community Q&A regarding a rule that sends a notification when a sprint is added or removed from an issue.

My posting has a link to my Github account that contains the exported A4J rule, screenshots of the rule, and a demo recording.

{{issue.sprint}} contains not only the Open sprint but also completed sprints. If you print the value in an email or web request, for debugging purpose, you can see that it contains a list of IDs and also another list sprint names.

Here is an example curl call to get the issue SP-32 that has 3 sprints in the custom field Sprint (10106):

% curl -s -u username:xxxx -X GET "http://localhost:42010/j82010/rest/api/latest/issue/SP-32" | python3 -mjson.tool | grep -B1 "com.atlassian.greenhopper.service.sprint.Sprint"
"customfield_10106": [
"com.atlassian.greenhopper.service.sprint.Sprint@3478edbe[id=1,rapidViewId=1,state=CLOSED,name=Nov-2023,startDate=2023-11-01T01:18:00.000-07:00,endDate=2023-11-30T01:38:00.000-08:00,completeDate=2023-12-08T14:36:44.069-08:00,activatedDate=2023-02-03T01:18:22.593-08:00,sequence=1,goal=<null>,autoStartStop=false]",
"com.atlassian.greenhopper.service.sprint.Sprint@5255fc4c[id=4,rapidViewId=8,state=ACTIVE,name=ActiveSprint,startDate=2023-12-01T19:33:00.000-08:00,endDate=2023-12-31T19:33:00.000-08:00,completeDate=<null>,activatedDate=2023-12-06T19:45:01.005-08:00,sequence=4,goal=Dec-2023 ,autoStartStop=false]",
"com.atlassian.greenhopper.service.sprint.Sprint@68447f13[id=5,rapidViewId=8,state=CLOSED,name=short sprint Dec 11 only,startDate=2023-12-11T03:48:00.000-08:00,endDate=2023-12-11T16:00:00.000-08:00,completeDate=2023-12-11T16:00:05.489-08:00,activatedDate=2023-12-11T15:56:42.006-08:00,sequence=5,goal=,autoStartStop=false]"

Issue SP-32 has was in closed sprints {1,5} and currently in open sprint 4.

When Sprint is changed, we have {{fieldChange.from}} and {{fieldChange.to}} containing list of sprints before and after. The solution is complex for the case

from: closed, open
to: closed, future

We need to find the 'changed' sprint and then check its state (could be future or open).

My solution uses Set theory and basic math to find the 'changed' sprint, use REST API to get the sprint's state, then send notification based on the state.

Johnny Mon

I just posted my solution today which should cover all the edge cases.

Doug Levitt_tunij3

Hi @Johnny Mon

Thanks for sharing. This is quite interesting and useful (and quite brilliant).

The next question -- which I struggle with -- is how to transform this into something more meaningful.

In our case, we are trying to develop predictability metrics across multiple teams over time (i.e. the course of many sprints). Specifically, how well are the teams delivering those Product Backlog Items that they planned (during Sprint Planning) at the end of each Sprint. And how does change (i.e. items added during the Sprint and items removed during the Sprint) impact that original plan.

I will test your solution locally, as that is the first step in figuring out how to automatically generate a report, for our 30+ teams.

Thanks!

Doug

Johnny Mon

Good Luck @Doug Levitt. Let us know if have a problem setting up the rule in your environment.

Doug Levitt_tunij3

@Johnny Mon

I successfully implemented what you documented. The .png files plus accompanying json were invaluable (making it easy to implement the same logic).

For whatever reason, I was unable to import the json. I received the following error (after downloading the file as raw):

Error parsing provided JSON. Please ensure it was created using 'Export rules' previously. If the problem persists please contact Atlassian support! Error: MismatchedInputException: Cannot deserialize value of type `java.lang.String` from Object value (token `JsonToken.START_OBJECT`) at [Source: (ByteArrayInputStream); line: 1, column: 127] (through reference chain: com.codebarrel.automation.rulecomponent.jira.action.outgoingwebhook.OutgoingWebhookActionConfig["headers"]->java.util.ArrayList[0]->com.codebarrel.automation.rulecomponent.jira.action.outgoingwebhook.OutgoingWebhookActionConfig$Header["value"])

Also, I was unable to view the mp4.

Thanks again,

Doug

Welcome!

It looks like you're new here. Sign in or register to get started.

Quick Links

Find more posts tagged with

jira

cloud

jira-software

atl-gruland

automation