Is it possible to use automation to auto increment a numerical value across multiple tickets?

Question

Hi everyone, I'm not sure if the request below is possible but any advice or guidance would be really helpful.

I am trying to create a numerical value that can be used as a unique identifier when a ticket is created.

We have two ticket types within our project:

- New Demand

- Sub Tasks

I would like that upon transition, only new demand tickets are allocated a numerical value, which increments by 1 each time a subsequent ticket is taken through the transition.

e.g. ticket 1 given value 1, ticket 2 given value 2 and so on.

Ideally, I would use key but I am looking to exclude sub-tasks from this, therefore currently key gives an order that jumps dependent on number of sub-tasks created between new demand tickets.

Our Jira instance doesn't have the ability to create a variable which has stumped my progress.

I have tried searching existing posts with the closest match being here with an answer from Bill Sheboy: Solved: Increment data number on summary field when a new ... (atlassian.com)

Jared_i9dhht · Answer

Hi @Marco Brundel

Thanks for responding. One of our teams use the key generated as an ID to align with the reporting/activity they do. They are quite particular about it following an uninterrupted sequence.

Currently this is done on a different tool, with us testing whether the same is possible in Jira.

So far I've been able to set it up so that automation extracts the key numerical value to serve as that identifier. However, sub-tasks interrupt this sequence.

I'm going to see if that is sufficient for their use case, but if not I was curious minus storing a variable if there was a way I could segment to only allocate that value per the "new demand" issue type.

Marco Brundel · Answer

Hi,

If you have the possibility to create a numerical custom field, you can use Jira smart values ​​- math expressions with Automation for Jira.

Example:
{{#=}}{{issue.customfieldname}} + 1{{/}}

You must then have a linked issue or epic to which the issues are always linked to keep track of the numbers.

Regards,
Marco

Marco Brundel · Answer

Hi @Jared ,

May I ask what is the reason for this wish (the question behind the question)?

Can it possibly be solved by a filter with exclusion of subtasks and showing the filter result in order of key?

Regards, Marco