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Link existing child issues to newly created Epic in the same Automation.

Jack Wiltshire

So here's the deal.

I have it set up so that if employees of my workplace email a particular domain it creates an issue on my board.

What I'm trying to set up is so that if I change a field in that ticket it does the following:

1) Checks to see if an Epic with the same value as the field already exists

2) Creates an Epic ✅

3) Copies the fields of the issue into the created epic ✅

4) Automatically sets itself as the child issue to the newly created Epic

Can anyone help with this?

The green checks are what I've been able to figure out in the flow on my own.

Accepted answers

Trudy P Claspill

Hello @Jack Wiltshire

Welcome to the community.

Can you please show us all the components of the rule you have built so far?

Is this in a Company Managed project or a Team Managed project?

You can get information about an issue you have created within the automation rule using the {{createdIssue}} smart value.

If this is for a Company Managed project, and you have triggered the rule from the issue that you want to make a child of the newly created Epic, then it should work for you to use the Edit Issue action and set the Epic Link field to {{cretatedIssue.key}}

All comments

Trudy P Claspill

Hello @Jack Wiltshire

Welcome to the community.

Can you please show us all the components of the rule you have built so far?

Is this in a Company Managed project or a Team Managed project?

You can get information about an issue you have created within the automation rule using the {{createdIssue}} smart value.

Jack Wiltshire

Hey, Not sure what either of those terms means ill be honest. I manage the project myself and it's solely used by me, it's used for non-technical use in creating a task for me to complete regarding compliance and bid proposals.

This is where I get stuck: Screenshot 2022-12-01 at 20.39.53.png

Trudy P Claspill

When you are viewing the project, in the navigation pane on the left at the bottom it will say if the project is team-managed or company-managed.

Example

Screen Shot 2022-12-01 at 3.03.37 PM.png

This is important to know because the solution is different for each project.

You'll want to get rid of the branch that says "For all created issues". You are not going to need that. Instead you are going to need an Edit Issue action. The details of that action depend on your answer about the type of project.

Trudy P Claspill

I forgot to ask about the first item in your list.

Which field in the "child" issue holds the value you would use to check if an Epic already exists? And what type of field is that?

And which field in Epics would you compare that value to, to determine if an Epic already existed and a new one did not need to be created?

Jack Wiltshire

Thanks, Unfortunately, it's still creating a 2nd new Epic for the 2nd test ticket. Ill include screenshots for that later on however here is the audit log for the creation of a new epic and then linking the trigger ticket to the new epic as its child. Screenshot 2022-12-08 at 02.07.44.png Screenshot 2022-12-08 at 02.08.20.png

The earlier time was the 1st test ticket, this did its job as expected.

The other is the 2nd test ticket, which again created a new Epic instead of linking itself to the existing epic.

I think there is an issue with {{lookupIssues.first.key}}.

Bill Sheboy

Hi @Jack Wiltshire

Lookup Issues uses JQL, and when you want more-consistent results to use the .first try adding an ORDER BY to the JQL.

Without seeing your current, entire rule(s), it is also possible there is a timing execution problem in the rule causing this symptom.

Kind regards,
Bill

Jack Wiltshire

Thanks, Bill,

See below, maybe you can advise on what's broken here:

Screenshot 2022-12-08 at 17.05.11.png

The updates to the Epic Links are {{createdIssue.key}} and {{lookupIssues.first.key}} respectively.

Bill Sheboy

I notice that your Lookup Issues JQL does not include a project check. Is it possible there are other issues which have the value in the summary?

Just to confirm, can you post the exact JQL you are using for the lookup...not a screen image?

And if that is not the problem, I wonder if the JQL contains operator is somehow matching/mismatching something else. You can test that by running the JQL stand-alone in advanced search to see what happens when you expect no second epic to be created:

issueType = Epic AND summary ~ "some example value of your Client for Epic"

Finally, what would you expect this rule to do if the value in Client for Epic is cleared?

Trudy P Claspill

I have created a rule that works with a Team Managed project, with one caveat.

If the text in Client for Epic is a single word, and that word appears in the Epic Summary fields either by itself or as part of multiple words, then the Lookup Issues returns multiple issues.
- Example
  - Epic 1 Summary: Larry
  - Epic 2 Summary: Larry Lewis
  - Client for Epic: Larry
    - Result: Lookup Issues finds 2 matching Epics
  - Client for Epic: Larry L
    - Result: Lookup Issues finds 0 matching Epics
  - Client for Epic: Larry Lewis
    - Result: Lookup Issues finds 1 matching Epic

I also discovered that with a Team Managed project now you can set either the Epic Link field or the Parent field for the child issue, and the child issue will be successfully linked to the specified Epic as a child issue. Go figure! I'm nearly positive that Epic Link didn't used to work for linking child issues to Epics in Team Managed projects.

Here's the rule, showing just the Components:

Notes

I explicitly add a criteria for my project to the Lookup Issues action.
For my final ELSE rather than sending an email I'm just using a Log action to record how many matching Epics were found.

Screen Shot 2022-12-09 at 5.27.37 PM.png

Screen Shot 2022-12-09 at 5.28.33 PM.png

Screen Shot 2022-12-09 at 5.40.45 PM.png

For the Edit action in the IF section these are the details:

Screen Shot 2022-12-09 at 5.43.17 PM.png

For the Edit action in the ELSE-IF section these are the details:

Screen Shot 2022-12-09 at 5.41.50 PM.png

I tested the above rule with the following scenarios, in this order:

Client for Epic value	Epic with matching Summary Exists?	Epic Created?	Trigger issue linked to Epic?
larry	N	Y	Y
paul	N	Y	Y
larry	Y	N	Y
larry paul	N	Y	Y
larry p	N	Y	Y
larry	Y	N	N - multiple matching Epics; "larry", "larry paul", "larry p"

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