Resetting an SLA through automation

[#1]

One of my clients had asked for a solution for how to send an email to the assignee if the issue had been sitting in a certain status ("Needs Attention") for longer than some specified time. The first thought was to use a filter and a subscription, but that didn't work because the assignees aren't all in the same group and we don't have a Time In Status plugin to get us that information.

We turned to an SLA-based approach. The SLA starts when the ticket reaches the status that we want to watch and completes when it exits that status. We then created an Automation that triggers upon breach of the SLA and sends the email.

The problem with this approach is that the SLA only breaches once. What if we want to send a "nag" email every 4 hours until the issue is moved out of this status? We need some way to reset the SLA as part of our Automation so that the clocks keeps resetting. 

Our solution was to create a new status - we called it Reset. We created a transition from "Needs Attention" to Reset and then back to "Needs Attention." In order to make sure that no one would inadvertently use this transition manually, we made it available only to the atlassian-addons-administration group. This way, only the Automation For Jira add on can execute this transition. We added "Enter Status: Reset" to the list of triggers in the SLA that stop the SLA clock.

The Automation itself was simple:

1. Trigger: SLA Breach
2. Action: Send Email
3. Action: Transition to Reset
4. Action: Transition to Needs Attention

How would you have implemented this functionality? Is there a better solution? Let me know.

[Bill Sheboy]

Hi @Derek Fields _RightStar_ 

That is an interesting state-machine solution approach.  Perhaps another way (for teams without JSD and the SLA trigger) would be to use scheduled triggers and custom fields for a counter and a flag (e.g. "send a reminder").  One benefit of that approach is keeping the issue in the "Needs Attention" status to preserve the status history and perhaps the count of reminders sent (to help with abandonment).

Best regards,
Bill

[Derek Fields _RightStar_]

@Bill Sheboy Thanks for the suggestion. If you don't have an SLA, then you would need some way to track time in status, right? One possibility is to have a date/time field that you populate when the issue enters "Needs Attention". Then your timed trigger could compare the time to the current time and decide whether to send the email.

[Anastasiia Kozaruk _SaaSJet_]

You can try SLA Time and Report. With this add-on, you can set up multi-triggers — maximum — 4 goals. If the configuration does not go to the Stop status within the time specified in the first target, the second, third, etc., will be triggered.

You can set the action that must occur for each goal so that the SLA does not breach and the notification in the comments, which will be sent to the email by Jira.

Try it for free on Marletplace

[Bill Sheboy]

Hi @Anastasiia Kozaruk _SaaSJet_ 

When recommending a marketplace vendor product, please ensure that you disclose your affiliation to that vendor in your post wording. For more information about this, please see:

Atlassian Community online guidelines for Marketplace and Solution Partners

https://community.atlassian.com/t5/Marketplace-Apps-Integrations/Atlassian-Community-online-guidelines-for-Marketplace-and/ba-p/689723

Best regards,
Bill