Automation for SLAs, recent rule runs

Question

Hello team! I've been working on setting up a help desk and configuring automations for different priority levels. I’ve noticed that each SLA runs based on the work item's priority is working. However, under Recent Rule Runs, I see that some automations that don’t meet the conditions are still being triggered to run but are not executing any actions. Could someone help me understand how automations are processed and why they are running on this work item despite not matching the ticket’s priority?

The condition that I set here is 
When SLA Threshold > Time to Resolution > will breach in the next 1HR 
Work Item fields condition > Priority = (priority level like high, critical, low and normal)
Action is to send an internal comment to the work item.

I created 4 automations corresponding to the priorities critical, high, normal and low,for the sample below, this work item has a CRITICAL priority and the P1 Resolution time automation runs with no problem. .

Zendtest · Answer

Hello @Evgenii thanks for this clear explanation. I was looking to create IF/Else condition however, each priority has it owns threshold and I use the SLA threshold breached as the triggering action for the automation. So let say,

Critical should send an alert to Assignee when Time to first response is nearing 30 minutes breach

High is nearing 1 hour breach

Normal is 2 Hours

Low is 4 Hours.

Evgenii · Answer

Hi, @Zendtest

Welcome to Atlassian Community!

Thanks for the detailed question.

Let’s walk through how Jira Automation works in this scenario, and why you might see "Recent Rule Runs" that don’t actually perform any action.

Here's a simplified version of how Jira Automation evaluates and runs:

* Trigger : The rule is activated by an event (e.g., issue created, updated, comment added, etc.)
* Conditions : Jira checks if the current state of the issue matches all conditions.
* Actions : If all conditions pass, the actions (like sending a comment) are executed.
* Logging : Even if the condition fails, Jira logs the run as "SUCCESS" or "NO ACTIONS PERFORMED" in rule Audit Log.

This is expected behavior in Jira Automation, because Automations Always Run on Trigger:

* When the trigger fires (e.g., “SLA Threshold Breach Imminent”), the automation rule always executes its evaluation process .
* This means:* It will show up in Recent Rule Runs and rule Audit Log
* But no actions will be taken unless the conditions are met

Example from Your Setup:

You said:

I created 4 automations corresponding to the priorities: critical, high, normal, and low.

So when a Critical ticket triggers the automation:

* Only the Critical automation meets all conditions, so Action is executed
* The High , Normal , and Low automations also trigger because the event applies to the issue* But their conditions (Priority = High/Normal/Low) do not match
* So they evaluate and skip execution

Yet still appear in rule Audit Log and Recent Rule Runs.

If you're worrying about executions limit - don't worry. Executions, which haven't done anything are not counted.

And one small advice - make one rule, not 4, just branch actions with IF/ELSE condition branches, where you'll configure Priority conditions for each branch. It will be easier to maintain.