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Is a kind of "pre-transition" trigger possible with JIRA automation?

Ulrik Schoth

Hi,

Using JIRA automation, I want to automatically set the Epic Status field to Done when the Epic's workflow status is transitioned to CLOSED. I found a solution on Atlassian Support which works fine for all other workflow statuses.

But for the transition to CLOSED I get an error:

Unknown fields set during edit, they may be unavailable for the project/type. Check your custom field configuration. Fields ignored - Epic Status (customfield_11202)

I assume that this is because the transition to CLOSED has already taken place when the trigger occurs and the field "Epic Status" is already locked.

A "pre-transition" trigger could help, but I'm not sure if such a solution is available.

Accepted answers

Shawn Doyle - ReleaseTEAM

Hi @Ulrik Schoth

I would typically approach this in the workflow transitions, is there a reason you want to do this via automation.

Mikael Sandberg

Automations will always run after something happens, it cannot be triggered as a "pre-transition". Have you considered setting the status as part of a post function on the transition instead?

All comments

Shawn Doyle - ReleaseTEAM

Hi @Ulrik Schoth

I would typically approach this in the workflow transitions, is there a reason you want to do this via automation.

Mikael Sandberg

Automations will always run after something happens, it cannot be triggered as a "pre-transition". Have you considered setting the status as part of a post function on the transition instead?

Ulrik Schoth

Hi @Shawn Doyle - ReleaseTEAM , hi @Mikael Sandberg

Thank you very much for your suggestions. Since I, as a project admin, have no direct way to change the workflow transitions, I didn't think of this possibility. However, I can of course ask one of our Jira admins to add corresponding post functions.

But:

I have taken a closer look at post functions and unfortunately have the impression that they don't help here.

According to the error message I described in my post, Epic Status is apparently a custom field.
The optional post function Update Issue Field seems to be limited in its use due to the following note: This post function cannot update custom fields and must be positioned after the other optional post functions.

Am I wrong?

Mikael Sandberg

@Ulrik Schoth Yes, epic status is a locked custom field, but it is one of the fields that you can update as part of a post function

Screenshot 2025-08-19 at 6.37.47 AM.png

Mikael Sandberg

My guess it that you have a property on the transition that makes the work item read-only and that is why your automation is failing, so your only option if you want to go the automation route is to do a manual trigger that sets the status first and then transition it to closed.

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