Create Jira issues directly from Confluence with the latest Automation enhancement

[#1]

Gone are the days of manually creating a Jira Software issue every time you make an update in Confluence!

👋 Avinoam from the Confluence automation team here and I’m super excited to announce the availability of a new action that will allow you to create a new Jira Software issue directly from Confluence Automation! Many of you use both Jira Software and Confluence so this new integration allows you to create your issue without leaving Confluence. 🎉

If you haven’t used automation for Confluence yet, actions are one of the three main components that make up an automation rule: 1️⃣ Trigger 2️⃣ Condition 3️⃣ Action:

When something happens (trigger) if it meets specific parameters (condition) then do something (action).

That could be as simple as “when a blog is published (trigger), by Bob Smith, CEO (condition), then send a Slack message to the #executive-team channel (action).” But with this new action, you can make even more powerful, cross-workflow rules in minutes.

💡 Need some inspiration on how to use this new action?

• When a new page is published, then a corresponding Jira Software issue for review will be created instantly for your teammates.

• When a project spec is reviewed and the page status is changed to approved, create a ticket for the dev team to start the build.

• When a new employee is added create tickets to provision their new equipment with the IT team.

🤓 Use smart values for an even deeper connection

Not only can you create Jira Software issues without leaving Confluence, but you can use smart values to further link your newly created issue with the Confluence content.

Smart values can be used to configure certain components in real-time, so rules can be built once and executed repeatedly while accounting for changing elements like dates, author names, or page titles.

When you build rules that create an issue in Jira Software you can use smart values to add Confluence information to the details of your ticket. Some smart values that might come in handy:

• {{space.name}} – the name of the space

• {{space.url}} – the URL link to the Overview of a specific space

• {{page.url}} – the URL link to a specific page

• {{page.title}} – the published title of a page

When it will be available?

We’re currently rolling this out gradually to all Confluence Premium and Enterprise customers so some of you should already have access and those who don’t should have access in the next few weeks. We’ll be adding more and more capabilities to this new action over time.

ℹ️ Friendly reminder: Automation is only available in Confluence Cloud Premium and Enterprise. If you’d like to try it out, you can start a free trial in your admin portal under manage plans.

We want to hear from you!

We’d love your feedback so please feel free to schedule time with us directly here or drop a comment on this post

[Judah]

Could this automation replace the functionality provided by issue collectors? Our security team has concerns about cross-site scripting attacks due to the HTML macro being enabled. The HTML macro is necessary to allow for issue collectors to create Jira issues via Confluence forms. 

[Avinoam]

Hi @Judah ! Would you be able to expand on that a bit more so we can best answer your question? thanks!

[Judah]

Hi @Avinoam sure thing. Let me try to clarify that question....

I'm the Jira/Confluence admin for an enterprise level company, we're hosted via Data Center. We offer our users the ability to create Jira issues via Confluence by using Issue Collector forms. This is not an automation. 

We use a macro in Confluence called the HTML macro that allows for imbedding HTML code on any Confluence page. We use that HTML to display Jira issue forms that when submitted create a new Jira issue on a specified Project. Again, this is not an automation, it's a form displayed in Confluence with fields that correspond to a Jira issue's: Summary, Description, Assignee...

Our users complete the form via Confluence and a corresponding Jira issue is created when submitted. We are interested in moving away from that method, due to security concerns. 

I'm wondering if this automation can be configured in such a way that it can replace our current intake process? Currently we give users the ability to input data directly into the Jira issue they are creating... they can add text to the Description field and select unique values for other Jira fields like Priority, Target Finish. 

Will this new feature allow users to customize the Jira issues that are automatically created? Or will that be limited to someone more in an admin role? 

Thanks! 

[Avinoam]

Great clarification @Judah ! Yes, this can support what you're looking to do and the customization will be in the admin's hands on what fields can dynamically be passed from Confluence to Jira Issues. You mentioned being on Data Center, and this is currently only available in Confluence Cloud - is that a migration you're actively considering?

[Judah]

@Avinoam - That makes sense, thank you! We are in the process of documenting pros & cons of migrating, but no active plans are in the works. Cheers!

[Dan Tombs]

@Avinoam Thanks for this feature, being able to turn Confluence tasks into Jira tickets easier will help out teams massively.

I love the automation engine, but I would definitely love to see further links between the two applications. Are the teams considering improving the create Confluence page action for Jira automation? It would be great if we could include Jira data in different points on the page etc.

[Avinoam]

@Dan Tombs thanks so much for the feedback and question! the answer is a resounding YES :) 

We're going to be adding more functionality this quarter as quick follow ups to this new capability so stay tuned! While we're at it, would love to learn more about what you would like to see more of here!

[Richard_Donnell]

This is a really nice feature - thanks for adding it. 

I've tried out creating a ticket with the link to the confluence page in the description - is there a way to make that link show as the (also really cool) 'Embed' option from the automation? 

[Dan Tombs]

@Avinoam

Thanks for the comment. I think it is important to make the most out of the integration. Things like auto linking issues and pages properly, being able to include information in ticket creation/page content etc. If we want to provide better transparency and less context switching, this is definitely a good start.

After this, I think the next logical step would be in being able to update an already linked Confluence page from a Jira ticket, or vice versa.

Where I see a great use for these automations are around typical ceremonies. Sprint retros, release notes etc. The other obvious one is around change process etc. Being able to have a templated change Confluence page and a linked Change ticket. If there were any large changes running through or CAB was required etc. you could auto create a page asking for additional clarification. Once something was approved you could update the ticket and then update the linked pages status as well therefore minimising any manual effort if you use all the features.

Regarding just Confluence automation actions, I'd really like the ability to archive spaces and pages based off of both update inactivity or view inactivity. I think from a cleanliness side of things, it is important to remove dead pages. However, just solely going off of when the last time a page or space was updated is not always the best. It would be great if we could use the analytics data to then determine if a page is even being looked at and archive based off of then.

Sorry for the brain dump but you said you wanted to know what I thought. If you want, I'd be more then happy to explore these or any other automation items offline?

Dan

[Mike Monk]

Would it be possible to create variables in the Confluence pages that could be picked up and used in the Jira Tickets?

[Avinoam]

@Dan Tombs thank you so much for articulating this so well 🙏  Would love to chat more in person and also share some of the things we're working on and thinking about so please feel free to schedule time with us directly here! 

@Richard_Donnell would you kindly be able to elaborate more on what it is you'd like to be able to do? :) 

@Mike Monk generally speaking yes, you can use smart values to create custom variables and in general to be picked up dynamically and used in the Jira Tickets. This however doesn't yet support the ability to fully pick up on in-page content and more so for actions/action takers and page meta data. This is something we're exploring more for the long term as it's been coming up as a need/ask from multiple customers. Would you be able to expand on the use case/s you have in mind for this? also happy to talk directly about this so please feel free to schedule time with us directly here! 

[Mike Monk]

@Avinoam We have previously been using a Confluence Template to gather information from our internal customers about their needs from our Team, we have then been transferring a lot of that info into a Jira Ticket. Recently we have started using Issue Templates for Jira to create the set of tickets (using the dynamic variables to capture the info as we transferred it) If we'd been able to "flag" those items as variables and linked them into the Jira Templates then it would remove another manual step from our processes... We are investigating the use of Forms in Jira as well...

[Richard_Donnell]

Thanks for responding @Avinoam - I'd like to be able to insert the URL from the {{page.url}} smart variable into the Description field and configure it to use the 'Embed' option with no manual intervention - currently it just adds the URL, and a couple of clicks are required to properly 'embed' the confluence page on the Jira ticket. Does that make sense? 

[Avinoam]

@Mike Monk thanks for clarifying!

@Richard_Donnell got it! Pre-selecting which embedded option shows by default isn't something we support yet, but I understand the need to also automate how it shows up in Jira for better consumption! 

[Khadijah Musa]

Nice read

[Avinoam]

quick update on adding support for more fields here: https://community.atlassian.com/t5/Confluence-articles/Creating-Jira-issues-directly-from-Confluence-We-ve-released/ba-p/2457921#M6362 

[José Henrique Lincoln Da Fonseca Felizardo]

How can I access Key of the issue created using "Create JIRA Issue" action in confluence automation? @Avinoam 

[Avinoam]

@José Henrique Lincoln Da Fonseca Felizardo you should be able to get that by adding the {{createdIssue}} smart value.

[Avinoam]

Hi all! check out the latest update here https://community.atlassian.com/t5/Confluence-articles/Automation-for-Confluence-update-MORE-triggers-actions-supported/ba-p/2476728 ❤️

[Matt Reiner _K15t_]

I love seeing Confluence and Jira getting along.

This feature got a highlight in our latest Confluence Automation best practices video: https://youtu.be/bWoQCCQupjw?t=945