Auto Updating Number Field

Kirk Acklin

I have a Business Project in a Team-Managed Project.

I am hoping to automate an update to a custom number field every time a new ticket is moved into a certain status.

Namely, it's a list of Projects, which has an Order field that goes from 1 to n.  The field is ignored until the Project enters an Active status.  When a Project enters Active status, it will be manually assigned a Order from 1 to n.  What I need the automation to do is compare that new Order number to the other Order numbers already in Active status.  If it finds a match, the automation needs to increase the existing Order number +1, and then repeat that loop until the entire rest of the list has been increased by 1.

eg. 

Before: Active Status has: Order 1, Order 2, Order 3, Order 4, Order 5. 

New Project Enters Active Status assigned Order 3.  

After: Active Status has Order 1, Order 2, NEW Order 3, Updated Order 4 (was 3), Updated Order 5 (was 4), Updated Order 6 (was 5)

Thank you!!

Bill Sheboy

Hi @Kirk Acklin 

Short answer: you might be able to do this, provided the only trigger condition is when an issue is transition into the specific status.

Stuff to consider: what happens when that transition happens in error, what happens if multiple issues are transitioned into that status in rapid succession, what happens when an issue (with an order) is deleted/abandoned, etc.

Why those things are important: 

• one way to craft such a rule is using a branch on JQL to find the other issues to update
• branches which could process more than one issue execute asynchronously and in parallel, with no guarantee of processing order or completion timeframe
• that means your updated values could be wrong

If you want to try this, take a look at branch on JQL and the math functions to increment the number field.

Kind regards,
Bill