So this topic has become relevant as Atlassian has changed the automation package billing model for Jira Cloud.
JPD (Jira Product Discovery) has a limit of 500 Automations on Standard Plan, and currently I use automations to bridge the gaps of basic functionality limitations in JPD vs JS (Jira Software). It's important to note that to my knowledge currently there is no plan in Jira Product Discovery that supports more than 500 automations per month.
For Example:
- The Formula Fields in JPD do not support advance mathematical expressions like Jira Smart Values in JS. You're limited to very basic Addition, Subtraction, Multiplication, and Division as per custom formulas in JPD.
- This prevents me from using functionality like MAX({Field_1},{Field_2})
- I use this to determine the Max Value between an estimate of Story Points from my product team, and the actual story point costing from my engineers Which I use to measure the effort of idea when generating a priority score in JPD.
- I was able to solve this by using Jira Automation since JPD custom formulas lacks the functionality.
- I have an automation that creates a variable using {{#=}}Max({{field_1}},{{field_2}}){{/}} as the smart value that runs whenever the value for field_1 or field_2 is changed. and edits a number field on the idea ticket with the result from the mathematical expression.
- This runs quite regularly, over 246 times in about 15 days. That's half of my 500 automation limit in JPD.
- Lack of custom weighting for fields in JPD. Right now in JPD you can assign a weight on a scale of 1-5 using dots and then reference that weighting when using a formula field.
- However for Impact we use a scale of:
- Lowest (1)
- Very Low (2)
- Low (3)
- Medium (5)
- High (8)
- Very High (13)
- Highest (21)
- Obviously 5 is probably fine for most business, but I would consider us power users of priority scoring, and so we like having a larger scale for measuring impact.
- Since we're unable to set custom weighting in JPD, I solved this once again leveraging Jira Automation.
- I Have an automation that runs whenever an impact drop down field is changed in JPD, and the automation just edits a number field with the weighting that I want based on the selected impact. Then I use this number field as part of the custom formula field for priority score. This allows me to use custom weighting without being blocked by the limited functionality in JPD.
- I have 2 automations like this generating different custom weighting for scores.
- One is at 105 uses in about 15 days, the other is at 31 uses over 15 days. That is more than 1/4 of my 500 automation limit in JPD.
Note: I already sent in a support ticket with my concerns, however, I wanted to also bubble up my concerns here in the community as I would say that the 500 automation limit in JPD is kind of ludicrous considering that the product just came out of Beta and there are still MASSIVE gaps in basic functionality that can only be bridged by leveraging Jira Software's powerful automations system.
