Automation concepts -- Learning to write and use rules

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Estimated time to read: 7 minutes

TL; DR: Jira Automation rules help teams save time, automate repeatable tasks, reduce manual errors, and close some gaps in Jira features.  Effectively using automation rules takes time, effort, learning, and a healthy degree of caution.  If you want the benefits, you need to do the work!

When improving your automation skills, a "try it" approach aligns well.  The automation feature set and licensing model continue to evolve, and so require that customers regularly learn and experiment to identify their own next steps.

Here are things I found useful over time with automation rules.  I hypothesize this list and article will be updated as I continue to learn more.

"Don't Panic" [1]

Automation rules are not a "magic wand" to solve problems, and so should not be used hastily.  When you have an urgent situation related to Jira usage, work with your Jira Site Admins and the Atlassian Support team to identify the root cause and solve it: https://support.atlassian.com/contact/#/ 

When one rushes to use automation rules in such situations, things could get much worse, and much faster than the team can undo them.  In some cases, changes made with automation rules in Jira Cloud are irreversible.  Instead, pause a bit and use your team's problem-solving methods to make good choices and identify next steps.  If that includes using an automation rule, do so carefully and deliberately.

Make it safe to experiment and learn

In my opinion, the key to effectively using automation rules is experimentation: learning by doing.  Yet such experimentation could negatively impact your team and organization while you learn: creating "noise" from notification alerts, updating issues unnecessarily, consuming your monthly limits for rule usage [2], etc.

What you want is safety to perform experiments, reducing the "blast radius" in case something goes wrong [3].  For automation, a great technique is creating a separate "free Jira license" instance in which to build and test rules.  This will offload the impacts from the rules, while still allowing the completed rules to be exported from the free site and then imported to the production one.  For customers with higher licenses levels, you might also consider using sandboxes or a test project within your production site. 

Regardless of where the rules are defined, you may further increase safety using writes to the audit log with the Log action rather than performing issue updates.  Once your rule is fully tested, add the additional actions needed to change issue data.  When possible, consider leaving the log writes in place to assist future maintenance.

RTM - Read the Manual, and more

I respectfully suggest the majority of community questions about automation rules could quickly be solved with a search of the web or Atlassian Community. (Please note I did not describe using an AI bot.)  The "trick" is often knowing the correctly terminology and context for the question to help search.

You may preemptively save time / effort / stress for future automation needs by reading the documentation [4].  Yes...I mean read it all!  Doing so, you will find some well-hidden specifics of how to get smart values and actions to do what is needed.  For example, see the various "Examples of using..." pages and "combined examples" one about list iteration [5].  And after becoming fully oriented with the terminology in the documentation, searching for answers will become easier and more relevant.

If you are really ambitious, consider that automation rules for Jira Cloud and Jira Data Center [6] are different, and so is the documentation.  When you are using Cloud, you may find something helpful in the other version's documentation, so perhaps take a look.

Finally, do not forget the Atlassian Community! [7]  I recommend regularly reading automation-related articles, questions, and discussions, perhaps using watches to be notified when they are posted.  This is a great way to learn new and alternative solutions to problems your own team may be trying to solve.

Learn what is broken (or could be improved)

As noted earlier, Jira and automation rule products continue to improve over time.  Watching what other customers observe as defects may help you avoid the same challenges, and perhaps learn workarounds.  Similarly, checking upcoming suggestions and feature changes will prepare your team for any impacts.

To find these, you may check the Atlassian public backlog for Jira Cloud and Jira Data Center automation [8].  For new and rolling out changes, there is a weekly blog of changes to review [9].  I recommend checking both of these sources weekly, as that will make it easier to stay informed.

Make a plan for your rule, build it, test it, and document it

Jira Automation is often described as a "no code" solution, allowing customers to rapidly solve their needs, either with template rules or by creating their own rule in the editor.  Yet limitations in the editor often make it difficult to see "the big picture" of what is happening, and editor changes last year make it more difficult to clearly identify problems in a rule using the audit log (as the log is no longer visible side-by-side with the steps in Jira Cloud).  Thus it may help to ponder before creating the rule...

Even for a simple rule, I recommend pausing to clarify what problem you want to solve and outline your rule to do so.  That could be written on a scrap of paper or in some text editor as a quick narrative.  This will solidify what is needed and how you might test a rule.  Now build and test your rule, using your plan as a guide.  Finally, when all works as desired, decide how to document the rule.  This brings us to the last tip: take it to the team.

Collaborate to share and build knowledge

You have done everything above, and your rules are super-helpful for your teams.  Well done!  Time to build both your and your team's value received from the rules.

As rules are completed, pair up with other teammates to explain the problem solved and the rule details.  This will share the knowledge and reduce risks as multiple people can help in the future.  Better still, consider using "pair programming" [10] when you create the rules to more rapidly reduce knowledge silos and develop more effective solutions.

Now it is your turn! 

What have you done to learn and build your automation rule skills?  Please add your comments and feedback below.  Thank you for reading to here, and your thoughts.  Happy rule writing!

[1] The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, by Douglas Adams
[2] https://support.atlassian.com/cloud-automation/docs/how-is-my-usage-calculated/
[3] Agile Leadership Toolkit: Learning to Thrive with Self-Managing Teams, by Peter Koning
[4] https://support.atlassian.com/cloud-automation/docs/jira-cloud-automation/
[5] https://support.atlassian.com/cloud-automation/docs/jira-smart-values-lists/#Combined-function-examples
[6] https://confluence.atlassian.com/automation100/get-started-with-jira-automation-1442910656.html
[7] https://community.atlassian.com/t5/Atlassian-Automation/ct-p/automation
[8] https://jira.atlassian.com/issues/?jql=project%20IN%20(%20%22Automation%20for%20Cloud%22%2C%20%22Automation%20for%20Jira%20Server%22)%20AND%20resolution%20%3D%20Unresolved%20ORDER%20BY%20Created%20DESC
[9] https://confluence.atlassian.com/cloud/blog
[10] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pair_programming