Power Scripts or ScriptRunner?

Brendan Pickford May 4, 2020

Hi there,

Regarding Power Scripts vs ScriptRunner, has anyone used both?

We had ScriptRunner installed for a matter of years, but no one was using it, so it got uninstalled. I wanted to try one of the extended JQL functions, so our admin installed Power Scripts for a free trial.

Now, moving forward, I want to get my hands much more dirty in this arena, and I'm wondering if there are recommendations for one vs the other?

Script Runner seems to win out when it comes to adoption, and keeping things fairly transparent insofar as the Jira API is concerned, but I don't want to sell myself short if Power Scripts has more potential in the long run.

Regards,

Brendan

 

 

 

6 answers

2 accepted

4 votes
Answer accepted
Alexander Eck [Tempo]
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May 6, 2020

Brendan,

we have cooperated with both Adaptavist and CPrime and I have tested both of the addons to a certain extend. As I am between the chairs you will not hear a clear recommandation from me for one or the other. It all depends on your use cases that you want/need to solve, your knowledge on Groovy and the level of support that you expect.

When it comes to functionality I would say both apps are quite similar and you can tons of automations and customisation with both of them. Scriptrunner offers an additional REST endpoint and has (still) a better support for third party apps events which is very important in my point of view.

Scriptrunner has a big disadvantage of relying on Groovy and the Java APIs (which might be an advantage in other areas though). As Java APIs can change between versions your scripts can break. Powerscripts rely very much on what they call routines which makes both programming easy and you should not be bothered of upgrading.

With Powerscripts you get the SIL language which is very easy to use and you get things done very quickly with a few lines of code thanks to their routines and you don´t need to import any classes.

Another important topic in my mind is support that you need to consider. Because you will need support.

I recommend you test both apps to make yourself a better picture of how they work in order of what you want to achieve. But expect to invest some time into the apps as there is learning curve for both apps.

Hope that helps and I hope you will get more insights from other users as well. 

1 vote
Answer accepted
Danyal Iqbal
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May 14, 2020

Having had experience with both plugins.... Clear recommendation for ScriptRunner... Scriptrunner is definitely more mature, better documented and suitable for the enterprise sector. 

Script runner has an entry barrier (~100 hours) whereas it is easier to get started with PowerScripts(~20 hours). A similar comparison can be made in terms of the value they offer. 

Besides you will find a java / groovy programmer under every rock compare to developers willing to invest time to learn SIL.

2 votes
Hyrum Steffensen--Cprime May 4, 2020

Hello Brendan,

Thanks for asking this question, as it is one that is often asked by the Atlassian community. Your experience with ScriptRunner is fairly typical. As anyone in the community knows, most companies have ScriptRunner installed, but sits on the system unused because of its complexity.

Power Scripts alleviates this dilemma by introducing the Simple Issue Language (SIL), an easy to use scripting language specifically tailored for use with Jira. With SIL, almost anyone can get started making scripts and using SIL is oh, so easy. If you are interested in implementing Atlassian Java API, take a look at the SIL Groovy Connector. However, most use cases are supported out of the box. For those that are not, I have found implementing scripts with the Atlassian REST API the easiest approach for creating workarounds.

While all these features are great, the reason companies purchase Power Scripts is because of our amazing support. We give personalized support for whatever script you may be working on. We help people get started all the time. For proof, take a look at our testimonials:

https://marketplace.atlassian.com/apps/43318/power-scripts-jira-script-automation?hosting=server&tab=reviews

We are hosting a bootcamp on May 7, 2020 from 11:00am - 3:00pm (EST) that is an intro to scripting with SIL®, and all the functions for automating anything and everything you want with Power Scripts™ for Jira. You can sign up here:

https://cprime.zoom.us/webinar/register/2315874934226/WN_Ew-hP9QTREuBvZyKfl68JA

Of course, we invite you to try Power Scripts for yourself! Feel free to stop by anytime for chat found in the Power Scripts documentation or schedule a demo by clicking on this link:

https://drift.me/hyrumsteffensen

Regards,

Hyrum Steffensen
Cprime Product Engineer, Power Scripts

0 votes
Varghese Aynes January 6, 2022

is it possible to write a JQL Query or Sil by comparing two different Date custom fields?
for example, Project =test and Actual start date >target end date

 The actual start date and target end date are two different custom fields but I want to fetch these details for the report 

0 votes
Steve Letch October 21, 2021

With Power Scripts

 

Would like to add, that for my particular use case of bulk adding groups with view perms to pages by using a database query to find all the contentID's I want to add them to, it's been very useful for the most part.

 

Sadly there's a massive bug, whether caused by the add on or Confluence itself, where you will only get 100% of the perms applied if you choose the edit page perm, trying to set the view perm has skipped over approximately 500 pages in 4000 with no clear reason as to why.

 

Scriptrunner sadly doesn't provide any functionality with a built in script to add a group or user perm, only the incredibly silly replace all the perms with a particular set of perms or remove all perms entirely. Clap for the genius that thought that would be useful, also, figured out its kind of useless as it uses CQL, which will only return pages you have explicit access to in the first place, so there's no override.

 

We went down the path of using Adaptavists scripting service and after months they couldn't get round the addcontentpermission java hook being pretty broken and not applying the perms too.

0 votes
Chelsea Bauer--Cprime May 5, 2020

Hi Brendan, 

Chelsea here with Cprime products. You mentioned that you want to get your hands much more dirty in this arena, so just wanted to share that we're doing a bootcamp May 7, 2020, 11:00 am - 3:00 pm EST. It'll cover all the basics on how to use Power Scripts and SIL. Might be of interest to see if any of the features align with your use cases. 

All the best,
Chelsea Bauer

kayode September 3, 2020

Hi Chelsea,

 

I stumbled across your response here.   Do you have the webinar recorded and accessible?  Or do you have future sessions planned?    I will want to check out Power Scripts.

 

Thank You

Kay

Chelsea Bauer--Cprime September 3, 2020

Hi Kay, 

Here's the recording of the Bootcamp webinar, and here's the breakdown of each section with the pdfs and exercises. I know this is a lot of content, so please let me know if you have any questions. 

All the best,
Chelsea 



Yurii ZHATKIN March 30, 2022

Hi Chelsea, 
The link you shared pdfs and exercises does not seem to work :( I wanted to train myself using your exercises...

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