How to change issue priority based on issue status change

[#1]

Hello everyone!

 The goal of this article is to help guide you in order to set issue priority when the issue is escalated. I have come across situations where when an issue with medium priority is escalated by selecting a status of Escalate, the Issue priority needs to be set as High. Similarly, for an issue with high priority, when issue status of Escalate is selected, the issue priority may need to be set as Critical. 

 This can be done either manually by changing the workflow transition to include conditions and post functions or it could also be achieved via automation rules. I will provide both options below.

 The priority list included with Jira has a set of default values as seen in the link below. This could be tailored to included any values as needed by the specific project. 

• https://support.atlassian.com/jira-cloud-administration/docs/what-are-issue-statuses-priorities-and-resolutions/

 This list could be modified to add a new priority level from the cog icon > Settings > Issues > Priorities screen

 Here is a link that gives you more information on tailoring the priorities to suit project needs:

• https://support.atlassian.com/jira-cloud-administration/docs/configure-statuses-resolutions-and-priorities/

Manual method of editing the workflow:

Please keep in mind that you can't directly edit the built-in or default workflows, but you can copy them and use the copy as a basis to create your own.

1. Click on the Cog icon > Issues > Workflows and search for the workflow you need to edit.
2. Click on Copy and add a name for this new workflow. By default, it will show “Copy of”, so just add a name that will be easier for you to find when associating this new workflow to the issue type and then, click on Copy again.
3. After clicking on Copy, it will automatically open the edit mode of the workflow and you will see that it’s inactive.

The steps listed below need to be performed for every transition that needs the condition and post function operation to happen. i.e. every Escalate transition needs to have the following steps done.

1. Select the transition: In diagram mode, select the transition arrow. In text mode, select the transition's name from the Transitions (id) column. - example (Escalate)
2. 
3. To add a condition to a transition: In diagram mode, click Conditions in the properties panel to show the triggers configured for the transition. In text mode, select the Conditions tab.
4. When you click Add condition, you can choose from the available conditions, and set any necessary parameters for the condition and click Add - For example you can set the value field to check for a value of Medium as follows:
5. 
6. To add a post function to a transition: In diagram mode, click Post functions in the properties panel to show the triggers configured for the transition. In text mode, select the Post functions tab. Click Add post function.
   For example - you can select Update Issue field and click Add and choose 'Priority' for the issue field and the value as High and click Add.
7. See screenshot below:
   

Note - As mentioned earlier these steps listed above need to be completed for each transition

1. Now that the workflow is edited, you can associate it with the desired issue types on your project.
2. Go to Cog icon > Issues > Workflow schemes > Click Edit for the workflow scheme that is associated to the relevant project and that contains the workflow you have copied and edited earlier.
3. Click Add workflow > Add existing. 
4. Select the newly edited workflow on the list and click Next.
5. On the next screen, select the issue type that you want to associate with the workflow and click on Finish.
6. The final step is to publish it, so the new workflow can be associated with all existing tickets linked to the issue type.
7. After the previous step, a message will appear on the top of the page informing “There are unpublished changes. Do you want to publish this draft now?”, so click on Publish > Associate > Acknowledge.

Once all these steps are complete, you can now create an issue and when it is transitioned to Escalated from any status, the priority if set to Medium will change to High and if the priority was set to High, it would change to Critical.

Automation Rule to change the priority based on issue status change to Escalate:

The easy way to accomplish this would be to use an automation rule and this can be setup as follows:

1. From your service project sidebar, select Project settings > Automation.
2. Select Create rule.
3. Select Issue transitioned from the New Trigger section.
4. Leave the From status as blank and select Escalated for the To status -> this indicates that automation rule is only when the status changes _to Escalated. The status from which it moves to Escalated does not matter here.
5. Click Save.
6. From New Component section, select New Condition > Issue Fields condition and options field = priority, condition equals,
7. value Medium. Click Save
8. From Add Component section, select New Action > Edit Issue > Fields to set - Priority and value as High. Click Save.
9. Enter a name for this rule and click Turn it On.
10. This would result in a rule like this:
11. 
12. Repeat the steps above to create another automation rule to change the priority from High to Critical when the issue status transitions to Escalated.
13. You can now create an issue and when it is transitioned to a status of Escalated from any status, the priority if set to Medium will be set as High and if the priority was High, it would change as Critical. 

Note that the automation rules can also be configured to run for the single project only or for all service management projects or globally for all projects. 

I have also included below some helpful links to bookmark when working with workflows and automation:

• Work with issue workflows
• Add-and-delete-an-issue-workflow/
• Configure-advanced-issue-workflows/
• Create-an-automation-rule-to-prioritize-your-service-desks-incident/