If Issue is linked to ABC-1, also link to ABC-2

[April_Delay]

Is there a way to create this automation?:

If my issue, CAT-1 is linked to DOG-1, then also link my CAT-1 to DOG-2.

Result:

CAT-1 relates to DOG-1

CAT-1 relates to DOG-2

[Trudy Claspill]

Hello @April_Delay 

Yes, Automation Rules can be used to create links between issues. There is a Link Issues action you can use for that.

But, how do you know that CAT-1, linked to DOG-1, also needs to be linked to DOG-2?

[April_Delay]

It's a hacky way of making another parent-like view. 

DOG-2 is the would-be parent of DOG-1 so CAT-1 will always be related. It's incredibly annoying but the only work-around until Jira allows multiple parents on a single issue.

The use case is a team is doing work on CAT-1 which has it's own traditional hierarchy like...

ANIMAL-1

is a parent of

FELINE-1

is a parent of

CAT-1

But I also want to see how CAT satisfies somthing like

HAPPY-1

is a parent of

PETS-1

is a parent of

CAT-1

Can't, so instead I need link CAT-1 to PETS-1 and auto-link it to HAPPY-1 every time.

[Trudy Claspill]

What I'm trying to get at is how do you know that CAT-1 needs to be linked to PETS-1, so that you could write an Automation Rule to handle that.

What event in Jira would you want to trigger the linking of CAT-1 to PETS-1? Should that happen automatically when CAT-1 gets linked to FELINE-1?

How do you know that it is PETS-1 specifically to which CAT-1 needs to be linked? Is there some relationship between PETS-1 and FELINE-1 that you expect to leverage? 

I'm not sure if I have references PETS and FELINE correctly to match your example.

[April_Delay]

Oh!  Yes, the event is issue link. When a user links CAT-1 to FELINE-1, the automation also links it to PETS-1.

PETS-1 and FELINE-1 do not have a relationship. This means we'll have to create an automation per desired outcome. Bummer.

It would be extra nice if....

When a user links CAT-1 to FELINE-1 or CANINE-1 or BIRD-1, the automation also links to PETS-1. 

[Trudy Claspill]

Are you using generic issue linking to create the link between CAT-1 and FELINE-1 or are you using the built in parent/child hierarchy between sub-tasks and parent issues, between issues and parent Epics, and above that (if you have extended the issue hierarchy)?

If you are using generic issue linking, what is the type of link you are using? What is the Outward and Inward Descriptions for that link type? When looking at CAT-1 how does it show the link to FELINE-1?

Automation can be used to detect that the link between CAT-1 and FELINE-1 has been created. The exact implementation for the Automation depends on how that link is made.

If there is no direct relationship (i.e. link) between FELINE-1 and PETS-1 automating the linking of CAT-1 to PETS-1 is going to be more challenging. Looking at it from a manual perspective, how would you know that CAT-1 would need to get linked to PETS-1 (vs. PETS-2, PETS-3, or whatever)? Would CAT-### always links specifically to PETS-1 and not any other PETS issue?

[April_Delay]

We will be using a custom issue link with Outward being "satisfies MAC" and Inward being "MAC is satisfied by"

[Kelly Arrey]

Hi April, the part I don't understand is how the rule is supposed to know which issue to link to - for an arbitrary CAT-x ticket, should it link to PETS-1 or PETS-2 or PETS-3 or ... ?

[Trudy Claspill]

We will be using a custom issue link with Outward being "satisfies MAC" and Inward being "MAC is satisfied by"

So in the case of CAT-1 and FELINE-1 would the relationship appear as

CAT-1 "satisfies MAC" FELINE-1 ?

If so, then it would be possible to detect the creation of the link between CAT-1 and FELINE-1 using the Issue Linked trigger. The smart value {{issue}} would refer to CAT-1 in this scenario and {{destinationIssue}} would refer to FELINE-1.

However, we are still missing the explanation that would allow us to codify for the rule how it would figure out the specific PETS issue to which the CAT issue should be linked.