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How to setup automation to read parent key from email description when creating subtask in project

Juraj_suuumu

we have some automation that makes subtasks automatically from sent emails (from outlook). it works nice, subtasks are created in project, assigneees are set from description from email and also priority is set same way.

And now, we would like to extend this automation the way that from description string will be parent set in subtask. eg. email will contain string #PROJXY-123# and this subtask will set its parent to key PROJXY-123 (if exists).

is it possible ?

Juraj

Accepted answers

Bill Sheboy

Hi @Juraj -- Welcome to the Atlassian Community!

Without seeing the specifics of your issue Description's format, this is might be possible by:

using text functions to extract the parent key
branching to the parent with JQL
testing if the issue type supports having subtasks with a condition
adding the subtask

However if the trigger issue is the already created subtask, you will need to experiment to learn if editing the parent will "move" the issue or if the REST API endpoint must be called from the rule to do so with the Send Web Request action.

Kind regards,
Bill

All comments

Bill Sheboy

Hi @Juraj -- Welcome to the Atlassian Community!

Without seeing the specifics of your issue Description's format, this is might be possible by:

using text functions to extract the parent key
branching to the parent with JQL
testing if the issue type supports having subtasks with a condition
adding the subtask

Kind regards,
Bill

Juraj_suuumu

hi @Bill Sheboy , thanks for your answer. but... I am very junior in automation and do not understand your proposals. I will describe my situation better.

1. we prepare email with text in body "#juraj" and "#high" and send it to jira.development@....smthx...

2. automation creates sub-task in project eg. "Development" and set assignee to Juraj... and set priority to HIGH

3. but automation is not able to assign parent (TASK) automatically

we would like to teach automation, that if there is ParentID inside body of email (description), than automation sets parent for the subtast accordingly (eg. text in body "#PROJXY-123#" means that subtask should be assigned to parent with such issue ID)

i believe it is possible , but wonder how and hope is not too much difficult

Snímka obrazovky 2025-03-21 124927.png

Bill Sheboy

Please post an image of your entire rule in a single image for context. Thank you!

And something you describe puzzles me: normally Jira email handlers create an issue from the email. Do you instead have a rule triggered on Issue Created which is attempting to modify the issue?

Back to the scope of your original question, let us assume your Description contains the issue key somewhere in the text in that format, such as: #PROJXY-123#

That could be extracted and saved in a created variable using this expression:

{{issue.description.replace("\n", " ").split(" ").match("#([A-Z][A-Z0-9]++\-\d++)#").distinct}}

That works by:

replacing any newlines in the Description with spaces
splitting the result to make the search easier
using match() with a regular expression to only return valid issue keys
- Project keys must start with an uppercase letter, followed by one or more uppercase alphanumeric characters.
add distinct on the end to prevent any duplicate keys

Juraj_suuumu

hi Bill, thanks for your effort ! here is my automation in screens. I like your code, but do not know how to use variable in automation

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