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Move workitem if no update in 3 days

Ben Greene_18e18c

Hi, I am working with a Kanban space and want to setup automation to move workitems if they have not been moved to a different column after 3 days.

I made the below automation to test out doing this, and just add a comment for now.

The flow does look to run without error but it never adds a comment.

I have created custom columns in my board, ideally I'd like the rule to move the workitem to one of those columns based off the column it was previously sitting in.

Screenshot 2026-08-06 173814.png

Accepted answers

All comments

Alan Bruce

Hello @Ben Greene ,

Can you show the rest of the workflow so we can see what might be missing?

Trudy P Claspill

Hello @Ben Greene

To move the items from one column to another in a board you need to change the status of the item. In an Automation Flow that means using the Transition Work Item action.

Let us say your statuses are A, B, C, and D.

Let us say you want the work item to transition thus:

If current status is A, then transition to B.
Else-if current status is B, then transition to C.
Else-if current status is C, then transition to D

For that you need to use the IF-Else Condition block

https://support.atlassian.com/cloud-automation/docs/jira-automation-conditions/#If-else-block

Review the documentation on those items and then let us know if you have more questions.

Ben Greene_18e18c

Here is the rest

Ben Greene_18e18c

@Alan Bruce Screenshot 2026-08-06 192235.png

Varsha Joshi

I would have that automation send you an email for testing purposes. You can if it is doing anything. Also do you see any warning in the audit log?

Kamei Ryosuke

Hi Ben,

The two settings in your first screenshot cancel each other out. The trigger has "Only include work items that have changed since the last time this flow executed" ticked, and that option looks at the updated date: a work item only gets in if it was edited after the previous run. Your JQL asks for items with no update in the last three days. The flow runs daily, so any item matching the JQL has, by definition, not changed since yesterday's run, and the trigger drops every one of them. Zero items counts as a successful run, so you get no error and no comment. Atlassian's KB on that option: https://support.atlassian.com/automation/kb/Only-include-issues-that-have-changed-since-the-last-time-this-rule-executed/

Untick that box and the comment will start appearing. I'd leave "Prevent duplicates" on the comment action as it is. It had nothing to do with the problem, and once the trigger works it's what stops the flow from commenting again every morning.

One more thing on the JQL. Your updated condition means nothing at all happened on the item, so a comment or a field edit resets the clock even if the item never left its column. If what you want is "hasn't moved column in three days", query the status history instead:

statusCategory != Done AND NOT created > -3d AND NOT status CHANGED AFTER -3d

The created clause keeps items that were created recently and never transitioned from matching on day one. I ran this on a site of mine and it behaves as expected.

For the actual move, Trudy's if/else with Transition work item is the right shape. After the flow transitions an item, its status has changed, so it won't match again for another three days. That gives you the three-day cadence per column for free.

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