Automate Task (Issue) creation and transition

[Chad Samsel]

I have successfully been able to automate creating tasks (Issues) on a schedule in Jira. The next step for this would be taking the tasks that are created and assigned to the Backlog and transitioning them to Selected for Development. Currently I am stuck at New Action "And: Transition the issue to - SELECTED FOR DEVELOPMENT. However when I go to turn on the automation I get.

Error

• The rule has been configured with components that require issues to be provided by the trigger. You need to use the option to run JQL to provide issues. The following components require issues: Transition issue

What am I missing here?

[Mark Segall · Accepted solution]

Hi @Chad Samsel and welcome to the community!

That error is typically associated with rules that are triggered on a schedule with components that need some type of anchor to based the step against... In other words, your rule probably looks something like this:

• TRIGGER: Scheduled
• ACTION: Create Issue
• ACTION: Transition Issue

It's the second action that would complain because the transition needs to happen against a trigger issue.  Since there is no trigger issue, you'll get that message.

If you're only creating one issue, you could do something like this:

• TRIGGER: Scheduled
• ACTION: Create Issue
• BRANCH: Recently Created Issue
  • ACTION: Transition Issue

If you're creating more than that, you may want to consider a separate rule for transitioning newly created issues.

Hope that helps

[Chad Samsel]

Awesome, thanks for the reply. I failed to mention that I am creating multiple issues in the automation. I ASSUMED that it wouldn't matter and the transition would be applied to each created issue individually. So now, how do I do this for multiple created issues in one automation?

[Chad Samsel]

Mark,

I tested your suggestion for creating one issue and was able to apply the BRANCH: then ACTION: to each Issue created and it worked masterfully. Thanks for all your help.

[Mark Segall]

To optimize performance, automation does not always run steps in series so I'm not sure how much I'd trust fitting both steps into the same rule.  You could try something like this, but if it doesn't work, I'd create a second rule that performs the transitions:

• TRIGGER: Schedule
• ACTION: Create Issue
• ACTION: Create Issue
• ACTION: Create Issue
• ...
• BRANCH (JQL)
  • Whatever distinguishes the issues you just created above
  • ACTION: Transition Issue

The key to this is that you'll need to have some distinguishing characteristics on the issues you're creating so you can easily query them after creation to perform the transition.  

[Chad Samsel]

I have been able to successfully run it in series with a separate branch on 6 issues with no problem. I do understand where you are coming from but for my team using JQL would only complicate the automations as they currently sit. I will keep this in mind if automations become more complicated. Thanks again.