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Automate Issue Links on Automatically Created Issues

Christian_b1x1yy

Hello Everyone

I have a series of tasks that I have built an automation for that runs whenever a new epic is created. When an epic is created, a series of children stories and tasks that are the children of the stories created. I want to automatically create pre-determined links that certain tasks are blocked by other tasks, but I am unsure how to do so.

Each issue created has an identifier field that allows me to know which other fields it should be linked with.

the logic I am looking for is as follows

Task1 with field value A

Task 2 with field value B

Automation is run -> look at all children of the epic

If child of the epic has field value A > That issue will be linked to another issue that is the child of the epic with a different bust still specific field value issue with field value B

I think I would be able to do this if I was able to run a double for loop. For loop 1 would loop through all children issues to find issue with Field Value A, for loop 2 would through all children issues until it finds that with Field Value B and links it to the issue with Field Value A. However, I do not believe I can create double for loops in Jira Automation. I am looking for other solutions to this. I am open to creative ideas.

Thank you all in advance

Accepted answers

Bill Sheboy

Hi @Christian -- Welcome to the Atlassian Community!

You are correct: there are no nested branches for automation rules at this time.

Which is a good thing (at this time) because branches which could be on more than one thing are run in parallel and asynchronously, with no guarantee of when the branch will complete, up to the last step of the rule...and so your branches could collide. There is a suggestion to add a "wait until done branching" option, but that will not help your scenario now.

There are probably a few ways to work-around the nesting issue; for your scenario you could try adding the issues and then linking in one rule:

trigger: on issue created
condition: to confirm issue type is epic
actions...add each child story for the epic with no branches to do so; that is, add them one by one
branch: on the created issues
- action: lookup issues with JQL to identify the issues to link to, based on your field
- action: edit issue, using text functions to parse the lookup result keys, and advanced edit with JSON, add all the relevant links: https://support.atlassian.com/cloud-automation/docs/advanced-field-editing-using-json/#Linking-issues

Kind regards,
Bill

All comments

Bill Sheboy

Hi @Christian -- Welcome to the Atlassian Community!

You are correct: there are no nested branches for automation rules at this time.

There are probably a few ways to work-around the nesting issue; for your scenario you could try adding the issues and then linking in one rule:

trigger: on issue created
condition: to confirm issue type is epic
actions...add each child story for the epic with no branches to do so; that is, add them one by one
branch: on the created issues
- action: lookup issues with JQL to identify the issues to link to, based on your field
- action: edit issue, using text functions to parse the lookup result keys, and advanced edit with JSON, add all the relevant links: https://support.atlassian.com/cloud-automation/docs/advanced-field-editing-using-json/#Linking-issues

Kind regards,
Bill

Trudy P Claspill

Hello @Christian

Welcome to the Atlassian community.

I'm not sure if I understand your scenario. When you say issues with value A are to be linked to issues with value B, are you referring to a choice of value in just one field (ex. myField could be set to "A" or myField could be set to "B") or are you referring to separate fields (myField=A and yourField=B)?

Could you provide a concrete example of a set of issues with real/sample values in the fields and tell us how you would want those to end up linked together?

Is this a correct example?

Issue Key	myField value	Links to
ABC-1	A	ABC-3, ABC-4
ABC-2	A	ABC-3, ABC-4
ABC-3	B	ABC-1, ABC-2
ABC-4	B	ABC-1, ABC-2

Christian_b1x1yy

Sorry, I'm having trouble explaining it. The myField value is a unique value and the only thing I now about each issue. I do not know the issue's Key. It is something more like this:

Issue Key myField Links to

? A myField = B

? B myField = C

? C myField = D

? D myField = A

My first thought was to use a JQL query to find the value to find the proper issue to link with, but the link issue action only allows me to link to trigger issue or most recently created issue. My other idea was to loop through issues until issue with until I find myField = A, then loop again until you find issue where myField = B, and do this for every link. However, I can't put in a double loop in Jira Automation. I'm at a loss now. Perhaps there is something that can be done with smart variables, but I'm not well versed enough to in that logic to be able to do it.

Trudy P Claspill

In my example I filled in issue keys just to have a clear reference to indicate which issues would end up linked to which other issues, based on the value of myField.

I am going to defer to @Bill Sheboy on recommending possible solutions. He's really a rock star when it comes to Automation.

Bill Sheboy

Hi @Christian and @Trudy P Claspill

The approach I outlined in my earlier post would work for this, finding the issues to link-to and then using the smart values as the key to add a single link per issue created. For example: {{lookupIssues.first.key}}

The challenge is if you need to link to more than one issue to each one: that would require using a dynamic JSON edit expression rather than a single link added, due to the limitation preventing nested branching: https://support.atlassian.com/cloud-automation/docs/advanced-field-editing-using-json/#Linking-issues

The other work-around for multiple links is to use 2 rules: one to create the issues and another (triggered on issue created) to perform the linking. That has a slightly higher risk of failure due to the possibility of all of the rules failing to trigger in a timely manner.

Christian_b1x1yy

Hello @Bill Sheboy, I was able to find a solution working with your help. I ended up running a loop for each of the Field value, with a lookup in the loop for the value to to link the issue to. I'm not sure it's the most efficient solution I could have come up with, but it works and I am happy with it.

Thank you so much for you help!

Christian

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