Jira Cloud automation: Manual trigger rules are moving

[#1]

Hi Atlassian Community!

Just posting a quick update here to let you know about a change we’re making to how automation rules are run.

What are manual automation rules?

All automation rules start with a trigger. These can be based on an event (e.g. When an issue moves to Done…) or they can be based on time (e.g. Every 2 weeks….).

However, some rules can be triggered manually. You can set these up by selecting the Manual trigger when creating an automation rule.

Once you’ve created a manual rule, you and your team can trigger it by going to a Jira issue and selecting Rule executions (next to Automation).

This is great for:

• automating actions that you want to trigger yourself - e.g. for audits that you conduct every now and then
• testing an automation rule before using it in your project
• creating custom actions that your team can access with the press of a button

A quick note on permissions

By default, manual automation rules can be triggered by anyone with access to issues.  You can restrict who can trigger your rule, by choosing a permission group under Groups that can run trigger after you've selected the Manual trigger.

Learn more about permission groups

What’s changing?

From March 2023, we’re moving manual automation rules to the Actions menu, which you’ll find next to Status. This menu will include both manual automation rules and looped workflow transitions (where a transition keeps an issue in the same status and performs an action).

Why are we making this change?

We’re doing this for two reasons:

1. Manual rules are hard to find: We’ve heard multiple times, both in interviews and here on Atlassian Community, that it’s currently hard to find manual automation rules once they’re created. Putting manual rules in the Actions menu will make them easier to find.
2. Unifying with looped workflow transitions: We’re using this as an opportunity to put looped workflow transitions and manual automation rules in the same menu, since they both serve similar purposes (performing a quick, automated, action on an issue).  Learn more about workflow transitions

Until next time...

Thanks for reading! If you have any questions about this change, or any other feedback about Automation in Atlassian Cloud, please feel free to leave a comment.

[Yatish Madhav]

Thanks for this article @Kevin Bui - I see there is quite a backlash on https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/AUTO-635 - I think some feedback I would have is that it does seem like a confusing and slightly abrupt change. It would be nice:

- to configure the display of the Actions panel at Org- and Project-level

- based on the prev point, hide the Actions if there are no manual or loop automation actions applicable

- have an override / global permission for the Actions button

- hide the Create automation / Manage automations / Audit log buttons in this menu depending on permissions a user has - or is this permission dependant already?

Thank you again

[Stephen_Lugton]

We have previously used the workflow actions to show a single button that only certain users can see to approve / sign off stages etc.  This change removes that single button and puts in an action menu with other options that is confusing users as well as giving access to automation rules.

In addition, what you don't show here is that there is a very big and annoying blurb telling people to Create Automation:




There need to be changes made to this, a minimum of which are:

- Allow the ability to hide that blurb

- Allow the ability to hide the Manage Automations / Create automation / Audit Log

- Allow the ability to hide the manual actions

and most importantly:

- Split the workflow transitions and automation rules into separate menus and allow the ability to hide the automation menu

I'm not sure what interviews were held with users that gave the impression that having workflow actions and manual rules on the same menu was a good idea, but given the feedback and backlash that I have seen it doesn't look like you spoke to the right users; workflow actions should be kept separate as people have built workflows around them.

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And a separate issue, in your example for automation rules you've used "you could create a rule that sums up all the story points of a story’s subtasks and updates the Story Points field on the parent task", but story point aren't allowed on subtasks despite requests from the community that they should be.

[Robert Schanil]

Can any user make changes to the automation rules? I.e can a basic user make changes? Or only admins?

[Doug Levitt]

IMO a very bad implementation.  The automation "fires" immediately when selected.  It is way too easy for a user to accidentally select an automation (or the wrong automation).  This could potentially lead to inadvertent data corruption.

The prior mechanism was far superior.  Requiring user to select rule and press "Run".

Please provide a way to disable this new "feature" (which I consider to be a Critical Defect).

Thanks. 

[Jennifer Mauws]

I dont like the fact that users are able to see the manage or create new automation selections. This is just asking for trouble.  Before thay just used to click the button to perform the action and now they have to click Actions then click the action they want to perform....seems silly but when you are processing hundreds of requests a day it adds time for sure

[Rosana Casilli]

Well I don't what is the issue but users are telling me that the manual triggers are not shown in the button action... 

[Térence LECROIX]

This means that we are losing access to automation eventlog for each automations ? This was fine because audit log for automation doesn't allow us to filter anything..
Also the old ways is a pretty good security mechanism for Jira service management, this more or like a double check before using an automation.
Please let the old way or integrate 

[Erki Tammik]

@Kevin Bui

There should be an option to enable confirmation before a rule is triggered to prevent any potential issues that may arise if a user accidentally runs a wrong rule.

Rules sometimes apply many changes.

Providing a description of the automation rule when hovering on it  can be helpful, but it could be implemented in a different way.

[Gerardo Dalena]

Unfortunately, I have to agree that this is a very poor implementation. A couple of users, which were in a hurry but were definitely human and therefore can make mistakes, didn't know of this implementation and confused the status button with the automation button. The fact that the automation fired without a confirmation created a big problem on certain issues/projects, to the point that our management has begun asking to restrict certain actions to some users or in specific time windows.

I understand that some user are not fully friendly with systems and they need to be aware of what they do. But, you know what? I can't accuse users for a simple mistake like that right after Atlassian has put a deadly trap right under their fingers. As long as we are working with humans, mistakes like that may happen at any time.

In my opinion, the manual automation should remain as it was before, or at least there should be another action to be taken (like the button "run") before launching the rule.

[Walter Lamm]

I actually like the move of adding a very visible button next to the status transitions, which displays not only all the possible manual automations but looping transitions also. That opens the doors for me implementing looping transitions which I didn't use until now because it would be so confusing for my users that some automations would be triggered in one place and others in another.

Great change, love it! 

[Erki Tammik]

@Kevin Bui why recent rule executions are removed from new "Actions" menu?

There might be users who are running rules and don't have access to audit log. This means that users can't be sure if the rule ran. Old UI at least showed some information.

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In admin.atlassian.com -> Product updates section there is an update mentioned.

This update seems useful.

[Oleg Topchi]

@Kevin Bui 

[David Meredith]

It's a bit late so I'm hoping this article is still being tracked...

I appreciate that Automation Rules was an addon that was purchased a while back and that it still being developed and improved. I can see why that, at some point, Atlassian would want to more tightly integrate this into the UI instead of continuing to treat it like a separate addon.

Just want to add my opinions to this:

• OLD - 'Recent rule executions'  
  
  • Is better viewed in the ticket
  • It's a quick view of what's been run on / impacted the ticket you're looking at
  • Please try and keep this type of functionality in the new implementation
• NEW - Audit log
  • Takes you to the audit log for the ARs of the whole project
  • You can't filter based on the impacted issue key or anything for that matter
  • https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/AUTO-28 would need to be implemented for this to be of any use
• Loop transitions
  • https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/AUTO-635
  • People liked having individual buttons... It's been trained into processes at many organisations.
  • Removing this functionality behind an actions button with no option to show individual buttons is going to impact thousands.
  • I know the intention is to unify where manual actions are taken on the issue but for orgs that have created looped transitions to make things easy for users, you're actively making things harder to find...
  • Just give it a toggle or something in the workflow editor 'Show as button' Yes/No?
• Configurability
  • The new feature is going to work well for a lot of orgs
  • The infuriating thing is that for customers that it doesn't work well for... There is no choice to switch it off or make it work differently
  • Are there going to be configuration options implemented for this? Or is this a 'This is the way it works now, change your processes' kind of feature?

[Leonard Hussey]

I am among the lucky ones that received this update when several of the topics raised were already addressed:

- Manual automation new option for user input to avoid issues by clicking wrong one. We're adding confirmation dialogs.

- Disabling the options for creating, managing and auditing depending on user role. In this one we did nothing from our side , it just shows to project admins and not to users.

But please consider that the old option cannot be removed until the Jira Mobile App also has the Actions option available. Up until the latest update I checked yesterday, this is not the case.

[Josh Gilmour]

Great, now I can’t do automations from the mobile jira app. Thanks Atlassian. 

[Aziz]

The Actions menu for manual automation rules, located next to the Status, is clear and easy to use. But it can be improved if we have the menu filtered or customized by these options:

• All (as it is in the current system setting now)
• Or by Issue Status
• Or by Issue Type
• Or by both Issue Status and Type

So the menu can display all the possible manual automation, or the admin can customize the display option to be filtered to display the manual rules associated with a certain Issue Status or Issue Type.

This change means the manual automation rules can be associated with an Issue Status, Issue Type, or both.

Thank you

[Josh Gilmour]

As this broke the ability to run automation rules from the jira mobile app, Atlassian has added a "Feature request" to get the functionality back - it can be voted on/commented on here: https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/JRACLOUD-81188

Not really a feature request in my eyes when the existing functionality was removed. 

[Stefano Vidonis]

Agree that this is a really BAD idea, from my pov automation do not belongs to stay on the manu at all!