How to apply automation to the "Create Modal" description?

[Marc]

Hello, for some reason the "Create Modal" has always been problematic in Jira. Poor support for markdown for example.  

We have automation in use to populate the Description field (for Bug type) with a template to fill in details and extra instructions.

This works fine except for the create modal. The following 2 screenshots will demonstrate:

Create Modal:

Created via other means:

Here is the automation rule:

Is automation the right path? It would seem so as "Description" should be the same field internally regardless of creation.

AC: Have the template text populate in the Bug description field before anything is entered, period, all the time.  Staff will then add/remove as needed for the issue to be actioned.

Help is greatly appreciated.

--M

## The following content is added 3Oct2022 by OP:

Speaking towards @Bill Sheboy comments.

The following is our automation.

My comment: The "on create" rule is the deal breaker as we understand.  When the issue is opened via /browse/XX-YY the template is added at that point.  We are trying to match previous GitLab use where a template would be prepopulated for bug reporting. This is a common practice and one I have seen done in Jira as well.  

Advice welcome.

Regarding Logs: I do not have anything directly to report, could be a product of my ignorance.  

[Sean Sullivan]

Im looking for this exact automation myself.. it seems that the "Issue created" doesn't fire because the modal is only a "draft" state?

Would it make sense to add a "Issue drafted" trigger? Or update the the current "Issue created" to account for drafts as well?

[Bill Sheboy]

Hi @Sean Sullivan -- Welcome to the Atlassian Community!

The issue created event only fires after the event has happened, and so the rule only happens after that.  I do not believe issues have a "draft" condition, and so adding such a trigger would be predicated on other substantial changes for issues.

When you need the template before the issue is created...the two solution approaches I have seen noted by the community are:

1. purchase a marketplace addon which adds templates, and
2. the more elaborate approach which adds custom fields with default values to replace the built-in fields (e.g. Description), hides the built-in fields from all views, and then uses workflow and automation rules to keep them in sync.

Kind regards,
Bill

[Aleksandra Bosacka _Deviniti_]

Hi @marc

It's Aleksandra from Deviniti, the vendor of the Issue Templates for Jira app.

After reading your post, I can see that the use case you described can be also accomplished with the templates functionality we provide, as an alternative to automation. 

In short, the app allows you to create a repository of re-usable templates that may not only copy over various fields' values, such as predefined descriptions for bugs, but also populate more advanced structures of Epics, Stories, Tasks with Sub-tasks, and any additional issue links automatically. The text autocompleted by such a template would be then inserted directly into the description field once a user follows the Create issue from template button.

The app is currently available for all hosting options including Jira Server/DC and Cloud. Feel free to ask here in case of any additional questions about the functionality or the required setup.

I'll be happy to help!

Cheers,
Aleksandra

[Bill Sheboy]

Hi @marc -- Welcome to the Atlassian Community!

Would you please show images of your rule and of the audit log details for the various paths?  That may provide some context for the community to offer suggestions for your rule.  Thanks!

Kind regards,
Bill

[Marc]

Added information to original post.

[Bill Sheboy]

Thanks for that information.  A few things I noted that could help...

1. The Issue Created trigger can fire very quickly, often before the issue is fully saved and available for a rule.  This can cause conditions to fail, and other problems, in automation rules.  The work-around is to add a Re-fetch Issue action immediately after the trigger; this will slow down the rule and reload the data from storage before other rule steps continue.
2. Automation rules occur after an issue is created, and they cannot add template data first.  When you need a template, consider changing the field default value (for a Team-Managed Project) or investigate marketplace addons for field templates.
3. You rule has conditional logic to only add the template when the Description is empty.  If you wanted, you could add the template after the existing data, as a reminder for people to fill in later.

Putting the first two ideas together, your rule could be something like this...

• trigger: issue created
• action: Re-fetch
• condition: issueType is Bug
• action: edit issue to update the Description, setting the value to 

{{issue.description}}

Here is some template information
Here is more template information

[Marc]

Reviewing and processing. Thank you.