Pulling the latest comment for each issue with Automation

[Shiyao Ling]

Hello,

I am very new to Jira. We are trying to auto populate a custom field with the last comment for each issue in a project.

I have followed the steps from various existing resolved posts out there: create custom field > create automation rule to populate the field with the latest comment. The rule works when I only have the custom field in 1 type of issue, but as soon as I add the same custom field to another issue type, I run into problems. What am I doing wrong? Does each issue type within the same project require its own unique custom field name?

Here is the rule I set up:

This is the error I get if I add the same custom field to more than one issue type.

Thanks!

[Bill Sheboy · Accepted solution]

Hi @Shiyao Ling -- Welcome to the Atlassian Community!

Did you confirm there is only one field by that name, Last comment text, in your team-managed project for the different issue types?

For the trigger issue's type in that example, did you confirm the field was added to the views?

To help confirm both of those, please use this how-to article with example issues to check the field is present, unique, and has the same custom field id: https://support.atlassian.com/cloud-automation/docs/find-the-smart-value-for-a-field/

Kind regards,
Bill

[Shiyao Ling]

Thank you Bill! The how-to article was super helpful, I found out the problem and now the automation rule is working properly!

[Bill Sheboy]

Awesome; I am glad to learn that helped!

What was the root cause of the problem?

[Shiyao Ling]

It was such a rookie mistake.  For each issue type, instead of just creating a new custom field for the first issue type then drag and drop from the "suggested fields" bar for the remaining, I was creating a new custom field and typing in the name for every single one of them. This indeed resulted in several custom fields with the same name, and the only way I discovered/confirmed that was by looking at the smart value. So thank you!