Automation for Jira, accessing a variable from outside of a branch

Jeffrey Bistrong

I am not sure if this is intended or it is a bug, but I wanted to share and see what others think. 

 

I am trying to create a variable inside of a branched JQL lookup and then use that variable outside of the branch.

 

Referring to my below screen shots, I was trying to access Variable A in the "Advanced Edit" at the bottom of the automation rule (which was located outside of the branched rule.

You can see in box #1, logging the action produced no result.

 

However, when I added Variable B (at the top) before the branched rule, it then changed something which then allowed me to access variable A outside of the automation rule (refer to box 2) which shows the log action. 

 

Below are screen shots of the entire automation rule if anyone wants to see what I am doing. The custom field 10800 is the Teams field that comes from Advanced Roadmaps, and has limited functionality inside of the automation tool, so I must manually manipulate it. 

Bill Sheboy

Hi @Jeffrey Bistrong 

TL;DR: the variable goes out of scope because of how branches work, and so is null.

Apologies in advance...I tried to write a shorter answer for this and was unable to do so.  :^)

Branches which can only be on one-and-only one issue (e.g. on Parent, on Current Issue, etc.) are actually run in-line.  And so it is like the branch did not exist (except to help with conditions).

Branches which could be on more than one issue (e.g. JQL, linked issues, etc.) are run in parallel and asynchronously.  And so...there is no guarantee of when the branch will finish, until right up to the end of the rule.  Stuff that happens inside these branches remains so, except for any issue updates, web requests, etc.

Putting these things together, let's look at an example:

• trigger: some trigger which has an issue
• action: create variable named varBeforeBranch
• branch: on Current issue
  • inside...varBeforeBranch as a value
  • action: create variable named varInsideOneIssueBranch
• outside of the branch...varBeforeBranch and varInsideOneIssueBranch have values
• branch: on some JQL
  • inside...varBeforeBranch and varInsideOneIssueBranch have values
  • action: create variable named varInsideTwoIssueBranch
• outside of the branch...varInsideTwoIssueBranch has no meaning and so is null

 

The original community post on create variable, which I cannot find, showed an example where a variable was created before and then inside a branch, and successfully used later.  That was a bit misleading as the branch was a one-and-only one issue type.

Often work-arounds for this design need are to rethink what you are trying to capture and use divide-and-conquer (with multiple rules) or lookup issues/objects to sum, average, etc. the data.

Kind regards,
Bill