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Usage of lookupIssues in Jira 9.17.5

Joe Palmer_3qp4al

I am trying to write an automation rule to update a parent Feature "Target start" date with the earliest child epic "Target start" date. I have the automation setup to branch on the Epic Parent link. I can find the earliest child epic start date by using the "issue in childIssuesOf({{issue.key}} ORDER BY cf[1234] ASC" - but I cannot seem to get the child epic start date by using the "lookupIssues" smart value to update the parent feature. In much googling it looks like this may not be supported but all LLM's are saying it should be. Any inputs on feature availability?

If this is supported, I have tried {{lookupIssues.customfield_1234}} and various permutations of to no avail - any tips?

Accepted answers

Bill Sheboy

Hi @Joe Palmer -- Welcome to the Atlassian Community!

You appear to be using Jira Server or Data Center version. Is that correct?

If so, the Lookup Issues action only supports a limited number of fields currently, and the result you found from the bot-guesser search is using information from Jira Cloud automation. Here is the suggestion to add the other fields for Server / Data Center:

https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/JIRAAUTOSERVER-877

The workaround for your scenario is using the REST API endpoint for an issue search with the JQL, rather than using the Lookup Issues action. That will provide all of the fields. Please see this related post I wrote which describes the technique:

https://community.atlassian.com/forums/Jira-questions/How-to-sum-story-custom-filed-values-to-an-epic/qaq-p/2787209#M1043853

Kind regards,
Bill

All comments

Bill Sheboy

Hi @Joe Palmer -- Welcome to the Atlassian Community!

You appear to be using Jira Server or Data Center version. Is that correct?

https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/JIRAAUTOSERVER-877

https://community.atlassian.com/forums/Jira-questions/How-to-sum-story-custom-filed-values-to-an-epic/qaq-p/2787209#M1043853

Kind regards,
Bill

Gor Greyan

Hi @Joe Palmer

Welcome to the Atlassian University!

I have this automation, which finds a ticket where the Provider Name field is the same, it finds that first ticket and links the rest tickets to that one.

See, if this will help, we can do some adjustments.

Joe Palmer_3qp4al

Thanks for the quick reply Bill!

I believe it is indeed Jira Server.

It seems that after having the list sorted by "issue in childIssuesOf({{issue.key}} ORDER BY cf[1234] ASC" I could use the lookupIssues.first.key to get the child epic Key of the earliest start date...now that I have that, I figured there is another method to fetch the "target state" by referencing that key. Can you think of any viable methods using this approach? I tried creating a variable out of that key but wasn't sure where to go next

I was hoping to avoid use of the REST API, but will if I have to!

Joe Palmer_3qp4al

Can you share the details behind the "Edit issue fields" step? as I mentioned below it seems since I can fetch the child epic key with {{lookupIssues.first.key}} I would think I can use that to fetch a value from that child as a way to work around the lack of field support in lookupIssues -Not sure if thats what you did in this case?

Gor Greyan

Dear @Joe Palmer

Yes, here is the screen.

Also, this is the lookup jql

project = INC AND "Provider Name" = "{{issue.Provider Name}}" AND key != {{issue.key}} and issuetype = incident and reporter = Fatal_Monitoring and statuscategory != done ORDER BY created ASC
Screenshot 2025-10-14 232054.png

Joe Palmer_3qp4al

@Gor Greyan @Bill Sheboy Can you think of how this might work?

Create variable minKey = {lookupIssues.first.key}

update parent start date to {{issue(minKey).fields.customfield_1234.jiraDate}}

The second line doesn't work, but it could be my syntax, I am still very new to this!

Bill Sheboy

The lookup result for Server / Data Center only contains these fields, and not the custom fields such as Target Start:

https://confluence.atlassian.com/automation/jira-smart-values-issues-993924860.html#Jirasmartvaluesissues-lookupissues-properties

You describe wanting to update the parent's field from the child with the earliest Target Start date. That means the rule cannot branch to the child to get the date AND branch to the parent to make the edit.

That is why the REST API call is needed as it will have a web response smart value which may be used in place of {{lookupIssues}} to get the custom field.

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