Best practice for automation rule

Nicolás Chen Serna

Hi!

I'm setting up an automation rule on JIRA Software Cloud where I want to "Synch" all issues from the same epic.

Ie: if an epic's field is updated all stories and subtasks are updated with the same info and vice versa.

I made the first attempt at doing so by creating this rule: 

And so on for subtasks.

The problem I encountered with this is that not all issue types have the same custom fields, so with a rule so general when the team updates an issue type that has no certain custom field that custom field will become empty in all the other issues.

 

I'm thinking that I have to create multiple rules to get where I want, I was wondering what the better practice is here:

1. Create a rule per custom field, with an if block, and then make the changes only on the issues types that share that field
2. Create a rule per issue type (fewer rules) and then if blocks per custom field.

I think #1 is the most efficient but I'll be glad to receive some feedback on this.

 

Thanks!

Bill Sheboy

Hi @Nicolás Chen Serna -- Welcome to the Atlassian Community!

First thing, in my opinion there are no "best" practices for this use case, and there are certainly worser ones  :^)

That being noted, this is a common use case and I highly recommend that you pause to consider why you want to do it.  Copying field data both up and down the hierarchy could lead to unpredictable results when rules start calling other rules...and eventually skipping some rule triggering due to timing issues.  It is often better to only copy up or down, not both.

Instead please consider:

• identify the fields you want to be duplicated throughout the levels
• pick one level where the field gets changed manually, and trigger rules to make updates based upon that change
• for any other levels' manual changes, consider using other rules to undo the change (using {{changelog}} and inform the person who triggered the rule of how to make updates.

Kind regards,
Bill