Create automation rule : send email alert on inactivities

Question

Hello,

I would like to create an automation rule in a specific space on our Jira Service Management (Premium) instance. First, here is some information needed to create it:

I have 4 priority levels: "Urgent," "Fairly Urgent," "Non-urgent," and "Depends on constraints"

I will be working with two distinct workflow statuses: “Pending” and “Assigned” and response times based on status and priority:

PriorityStatusResponse timeUrgent Pending1h Fairly urgent Pending24h Non-urgent Pending1 monthDepends on constraintsPending1 monthUrgent Assigned48h Fairly urgent Assigned1 weekNon-urgent Assignedno deadlineDepends on constraintsAssignedno deadline

Here’s the scenario:

For each ticket, based on its priority, status, and the resulting deadline, if the deadline is exceeded, send an email to a list of specified recipients.

Could you please help me design this workflow? I must admit I don’t know where to start.

Kevin Vancrutsen · Answer

Hello everyone, thank you for responding to my post; sorry it took me a while to reply.

So I followed your advice and looked into the various sources you mentioned, and here’s what I’ve come up with so far:

I added two SLA goals by filtering by status and priority. In addition, conditions have been added to trigger, pause, or complete the SLA. (See screenshots 1 and 2)

Following that, I created two automation rules (one for each SLA goal). I’ll explain the first one since both are nearly identical: when the SLA goal is triggered, depending on the priority, it sends a specific email to the assignee (see screenshots 3)

I haven’t tested or validated this in production yet. Do you think my setup is correct, or is there anything I could improve?

Alina Kurinna _SaaSJet_ · Answer

Hi @Kevin Vancrutsen

Native JSM automation can work well if you only need to send an email after a deadline is missed.

However, because your deadlines depend on both status and priority, you may find it easier to manage with SLA Time and Report for Jira. My team develops this app, so I wanted to mention it as an additional option.

You could create two SLA configurations:

Pending deadline

* Start when the status is Pending

* Stop when the issue leaves Pending

* Goals by priority:

* Urgent – 1 hour

* Fairly Urgent – 24 hours

* Non-urgent – 1 month (160 hours)

* Depends on constraints – 1 month (160 hours)

Assigned deadline

* Start when the status is Assigned and priority is Urgent or Fairly Urgent

* Stop when the issue leaves Assigned

* Goals:

* Urgent – 8 hours

* Fairly Urgent – 40 hours

This also means that Non-urgent and Depends on constraints issues will not start the Assigned SLA, since they do not have a deadline there.

In Limint Exceeded actions, you can configure a reminder before the breach, for example when 80% of the target time has passed. You can also add actions when the SLA is exceeded, such as notifying Jira users or a group, changing the assignee, priority, or status, adding a comment, and sending an alert in Slack.

The main benefit is that you can manage the SLA logic, proactive alerts, escalations, and reporting in one place. You can then use SLA reports to review which deadlines are most often exceeded by priority or status.

For a fixed external email address or mailing list, you can keep a simple native Automation rule for the final email delivery.

Hope this helps!

James Gamble · Answer

Hola Kevin,

@Mikael Sandberg, @Staffan Redelius are pointing you in the right direction here. I’d build this with Jira Service Management SLAs first, then use Automation only for the email alert.

In your JSM project, go to Project settings, then SLAs. Create one SLA goal for this response timer, then add goals based on priority and status. For example, Urgent + Pending = 1h, Fairly Urgent + Pending = 24h, Urgent + Assigned = 48h, and so on. For assigned priorities with no deadline, I would exclude them from the SLA goals.

Once the SLA is tracking correctly, go to Project settings> Automation, then create a rule using the SLA breached trigger. In the rule, choose the SLA you created, then add a Send email action with your recipient list.

Atlassian’s community guide for SLA breached notifications is a good starting point: https://community.atlassian.com/forums/Jira-Service-Management-articles/JSM-Jira-Automation-How-to-Send-SLA-Breached-Notifications/ba-p/1894625.

Let the SLA handle the timing, calendars, pauses, and breach detection, then let Automation send the email when the SLA is breached.

Thanks,

James