How to dynamically link multiple issues in an Advanced Edit when already in a branch?

Mart Postma

Hi everyone,

I’m working on a Jira Automation rule and ran into a limitation when trying to link multiple issues dynamically via an Advanced Edit action.

Here’s the context:

• I have a dynamic lookup table {{inwardIssueLinksTable}} which stores all inward issue links for a specific work item: 

  Inward Table: LookupTable{objectMap={96008=PSS-10173, 95276=COR-53017, 95271=PSS-10040}, size=3, entries=[LookupTableEntry{key=96008, value=PSS-10173}, LookupTableEntry{key=95276, value=COR-53017}, LookupTableEntry{key=95271, value=PSS-10040}]}

• Then I have a smart variable called

  <span>{{PSSInwardIssueKeys}} = PSS-10173, PSS-10040
  </span>

  (it’s generated earlier in the rule based on the lookup table and can contain one or several PSS issue keys).

• I’m already inside a branch that loops over the most recently created work item.

• Now I want to link this most recently created work to multiple PSS issues.

Here’s the Advanced Edit I’m using: 

 <span>{
  "update": {
    "issuelinks": [
      {
        "add": {
          "type": {
            "name": "Fixes in continuous deployment"
          },
          "outwardIssue": {
            "key": "{{PSSInwardIssueKeys}}"
          }
        }
      }
    ]
  }
}</span>

As expected, this works fine if there’s only one issue key in the variable.
But when multiple keys are included, Jira returns this error:

<span>Error editing work items COR-53314 (Too many operations (2) provided for field 'issuelinks'. We support at most 1 operation for this field. (issuelinks))</span>

I understand why this happens — the REST API expects one add object per link, not a comma-separated list — but I can’t easily add another For each smart value branch to loop over {{PSSInwardIssueKeys.split(",")}}, since I’m already inside a branch for the Hotfix.

So, is there a way to:

1. Dynamically generate multiple "add" blocks in one Advanced Edit JSON (e.g. using smart value iteration within the "most recently created work item" branch)?

2. Or otherwise, link multiple issues within a single branch context?

Any ideas or examples would be much appreciated, ideally something that can handle a variable number of linked issues without leaving the current branch.

Thanks!

Mart Postma

So... I've been trying to get this to work for my use case, but with a waaaaay too difficult solution.

Jira Automation simply already has the possibility to copy over linked work items from the most recently created work item (in the create new work item action block):

Posting this here for others, who might think too difficult, just like I was