Automation feature roundup: Permissions, forms, and connections

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Hey Atlassian Community! It’s been a while since our last update here. A lot has happened since then - we’ve been working hard on a lot of cool new features that help you connect your automation rules with other products and tools. Let’s take a look!

Permissions for automation rules

In April, we rolled out the ability to set permissions on your automation rules. If you’ve ever needed to delegate management duties of your rules, this one’s for you!

There are 3 types of permissions available:

• Private: Only the rule owner can edit the rule.

• Specific admins: Choose which project admins (in Jira automation) or space admins (in Confluence automation) can edit your rule.

• All admins: Allow all admins to edit the rule.

  • For Jira automation, this means all admins in the project and all Jira admins.

  • For Confluence automation, this means all admins in the space and all Confluence admins.

Regardless of which option you select, site admins will always be able to edit everything.

Automate forms in Jira Service Management

In May, as part of our ProForma integration, we rolled out the ability to automatically manage forms on Jira Service Management issues. We’ve added 1 trigger, 1 condition, and 2 actions to help you manage forms on issues. Check out this Community article to see these components in action.

Form submitted trigger

Trigger an automation rule when a form is submitted on a request. For example, when a form is submitted, automatically change the issue’s status to “Ready for review”.

Forms attached condition

Check if a form is attached to a request. For example, you could set up a rule so that if an issue moves to “Done”, check if the form attached to it is submitted - if it isn’t, move the issue back to In progress and add a comment to the assignee.

Copy forms action

Automatically copy forms from one issue to another.

Attach forms action

Automatically attach one or more forms to a request. For example, your rule could attach a form when an issue transitions from In progress to QA, to ensure you get the right details from stakeholders.

Connect with other tools

In May, we rolled out the ability to connect your automation rules with other products and tools. This is a big deal because previously, automation rules could only make changes within Jira. Aside from a few exceptions (like sending an email, or a Slack/Microsoft Teams message), actions never occurred outside of an Atlassian product.

Now, your rules can make changes in other products from a trigger in Jira! There are several actions so far that can do this, with more on the way. Learn more about connections in automation.

Create feature flags in LaunchDarkly

Automatically create a new feature flag in LaunchDarkly. For example, you could create a new flag when an epic moves from To do to In progress.

Create pages in Confluence

Automatically create a page or blog post in Confluence, either from a template or from scratch. A great use for this would be to create a page of retro notes whenever a sprint ends.

Coming soon: Create branches in Bitbucket, GitHub, and GitLab

Automatically create a branch in your code repository tool - Bitbucket, GitHub, or GitLab. For example, you could set up a rule so that if an issue moves to In progress, and it’s a bug, create a corresponding branch. Remember to include the issue key in the branch name for a more seamless integration experience!

These actions also come with some new smart values you can use to access the branch data later in the rule - {{createdBranch}} and {{createdBranches}}. Learn more about smart values for created branches.

Until next time...

Thanks for reading! We'd love for you to give these features a try and leave us any feedback you have. And if you have any ideas for other products you'd like to integrate with your automation rules, please let us know in the comments.

[Taranjeet Singh]

Thank you for sharing these latest Automation features in this article. They all seem to be very useful.

[Julia Foden]

Hi @Kevin Bui 

The Create Confluence Page action is a great addition. I had tested doing this previously by sending a web request but ended up never using it.

Are there plans to extend/improve it? A couple of things I'd like:

• return the link to the created page so that it can be provided in a comment "Hey @user here's your page <link>" or at least link the Jira issue to the page
• it's great that the title can take smart values but would be even better if it was possible to add content including smart values to the page body.

Thanks!

[Kevin Bui]

Hi @Julia Foden, thanks for your suggestions!

Returning the link to the created page is already possible, using the smart value {{createdPage.url}}. So in your example, you'd say

Hey @user, here's your page {{createdPage.url}}

If multiple pages have been created (i.e. your rule uses the action more than once) you can also use {{createdPages.url}} to return all URLs in a list. You can learn more about these smart values here: Use Jira automation with Confluence.

Currently, adding content to the page body isn't possible, because all the action does is create the page; it doesn't touch the content itself. But this is good feedback, and we'll certainly take it on board and think about it.

[Julia Foden]

Thanks @Kevin Bui 

I had looked for documentation on that - anyway, great to see it there now. Thank you

[Steph Sjostrom]

@Kevin Bui Does the new 'create branch in GitLab' action support self-hosted instances? 

[Kevin Bui]

Hi @Steph Sjostrom - The Create branch in GitLab action does not support self-hosted instances.