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New Automation Rule: Populate custom field in epic that actively tracks duration in days?

Hein Grebe

Hi All,

We are looking to populate a custom field with an automation rule that actively tracks the duration in days since an epic was moved to In Progress.

i.e. This field should display the number of days from the time of viewing since an epic was moved to In Progress. Therefore a daily update of this field is sufficient.

This field will then eventually show the total days spent in the active workflow when it is moved to Done. i.e active tracking stops and the value becomes static.

(We have automation rules in place that automatically moves an epic to In Progress whenever a linked issue is moved to in progress and also moving the epic to Done when the last linked issue is completed.)

I have a feeling that a simple solution exists but I am finding myself rabbit-holing down complex smart value strings and would be grateful for a fresh perspective/solution.

Also, my knowledge of Jira automation is patchy so a layout of the suggested automation rule would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance!

Accepted answers

Mathieu Truchot

Hi Hein,

What I would do, but maybe it is not the best solution:

1. Create a date custom field "date of in progress" for exemple, set when the EPIC is move to "In progress"

2. create a number custom field : "days in in progress" for exemple

3. run a daily automation to set "days in progress" with the value of <now> minus "date of in progess"

you can use the smartvalue below in the automation

see https://support.atlassian.com/cloud-automation/docs/jira-smart-values-date-and-time/

I hope it helps,

cheers,

All comments

Mathieu Truchot

Hi Hein,

What I would do, but maybe it is not the best solution:

1. Create a date custom field "date of in progress" for exemple, set when the EPIC is move to "In progress"

2. create a number custom field : "days in in progress" for exemple

3. run a daily automation to set "days in progress" with the value of <now> minus "date of in progess"

you can use the smartvalue below in the automation

see https://support.atlassian.com/cloud-automation/docs/jira-smart-values-date-and-time/

I hope it helps,

cheers,

Simmo_9kntn7

Hi @Hein Grebe

The approach suggested by @Mathieu Truchot would be the best way to tackle this.

Cheers,

Simeon.

Hein Grebe

Thank you @Mathieu Truchot for the suggestion and @Simmo for the comment.

From what I can gather there seems to be two possible solutions

-1-

a) Create 2 custom fields (eg. Start Date & Days in Progress). Create automation rule with {now} smart value to populate start date when epic transitions to “In Progress”.

b) Create automation with scheduled daily trigger that populates Days in Progress with smart value {{[date1].diff([date2]).[unit]}}

c) Terminate rule when epic moved to "Done"

Once set up this will only be applied to newly created epics through automation. (It is also possible to manually update the Start Date field retrospectively but does introduce a significant manual admin load.)