Automation rule: Copy components from Epic and Add additional components to a task

Question

Hello everyone,

I ve got stuck with an Automation rule:

1. There is a manual trigger in an Epic which enables creation of multiple tasks.

2. Every single task should have the same components as the parent ID/Epic--> Copy from parent ID function provided by Jira.

3. But some tasks should have additional components.--> added a JSON in advanced options.

4.Result: the Parent ID component is displayed in the child task but not the additional component.

Could you pls help me with that.

Attached you ll find the way I tried to solve the issue.

Thank you all in advance ;) !

Antonina Yudina · Answer

hey Bill,

looks like a lot of work to do for me. thank you for your advice and all the links you posted. I will take my time to review the instructions and afterwards experiment in my own project :) .

Have a nice day ;) !

Antonina

Bill Sheboy · Answer

First thing: in my experience, successfully using rules requires learning and experimentation.

I recommend pausing to understand the features needed from the documentation and trying simple test expressions, perhaps just writing results to the audit log, to learn what works.  This is better than only implementing what you find in the community or read from bot-created suggestions...and will allow you to better write and maintain rules in the future.

With that in mind, please pause to read this information, and any links I add below:

* https://support.atlassian.com/cloud-automation/docs/jira-automation-actions/#Create-variable
* https://support.atlassian.com/cloud-automation/docs/jira-smart-values-lists/#list.distinct
* list iteration: https://support.atlassian.com/cloud-automation/docs/jira-smart-values-lists/#Combined-function-examples
* https://support.atlassian.com/cloud-automation/docs/advanced-field-editing-using-json/#Components

Next, let's assume the trigger issue is the Epic with the Components you want to add to the new work item, plus more values.  And so we create a variable with all those values:

* action: Create Variable* name: varComponentsToAdd
* smart value:

{{triggerIssue.components.name.join(",")}},NewValueA,NewValueB

That uses inline-iteration to get the Epic's Component names, joining them with commas, and then adding any new values at the end with comma separators.

But that could include duplicates if a value, such as NewValueA, already exists in the Epic.  And so we need to clean that up in the variable:

Created variables are plain text, and so we split() the variable back into a list, using the match() function to eliminate any empty values using a regular expression, and finally using distinct to remove duplicates.  We use this expression to create the dynamic JSON:

{
  "fields": {
    "components" : [ 
      {{#varComponentsToAdd.split(",").match("(.++)").distinct}}
        { 
          "name": "{{.}}" 
        } {{^last}}, {{/}}
      {{/}}
    ]
  }
}

This iterates over the list to add each component for a single update, with commas after each item except the last one.

Please read the steps to ensure you understand them before trying in a rule.  And remember to test with example work items to reduce impacts to your teammates.

Antonina Yudina · Answer

Hey Philipp,

thank you a lot for your prompt response. I thought about using labels instead of components. But that would be an emergency solution :) .

Cheers,

Antonina