Automation - Summing up original estimate using linkedissues

Jeffrey_Denton

I'm creating an automation that performs the following tasks:

On Trigger (manually), the automation is to sum up original estimate to an Epic custom field called Total Project Estimate.  The rule retrieves all child tasks linked to the epic using JQL.  It also retrives linked "Idea" issue to retrieve the original effort on the idea.  Then, it takes the values of all child tasks and the original estimate of the idea and sums them up to the custom field Total Project Estimate. 

The issue I'm having is that the calculation in the variable is mibehaving

When you look at the audit log you can see it clearly, but I'm banging my head trying to figure out the error of my ways.  

Here is the audit log and rule:

It looks like a variable issue:

 

Marcos Defina

Hi @Jeffrey_Denton

I'm not sure if I fully understand the final problem you are facing, please correct me if I'm wrong, but you were expecting to see 20 hours at the final results, right? 10 from Ideas 10 from child Total.

If that's the case, I would guess the problem is with declaring your ideaOriginalEstimate inside of the BranchLoop.

That's a long shot, but in normal programming languages, if you declare a variable inside of a loop or function, it often becomes inaccessible to the global scope of your code.

As Jira Automations is probably develop on similar principles, I would recommend you to create the Total Idea Hours variable before the Branch, test if it is accessible inside the branch afterwards, Create a second variable inside the Branch (current_IdeaHours - because you're looping through many ideas), then you add the value of the Total Idea Hours = Total Idea  Hours + current_IdeaHours.

This would ensure you are storing the values you calculated inside the loop in a scope greater than the loop.

hope it helps!