automation just for the first time transitioned to "In Progress"

[Cristóbal González]

I have an automation to set Start Date with the date when a ticket is transitioned to "In Progress", unfortunately some issues return to "Backlog" and then moved to "in Progress" again, this makes the Start Date also change. What I want is to have the date for the initial/first transition to "In Progress"

Please your help.

[Bill Sheboy · Accepted solution]

Hi @Cristóbal González 

As the purpose of your rule is to set the Start Date once, have you considered adding a condition that the rule only proceeds if the Start Date is empty?

Doing that would also address the potential problem of accidentally moving something into "In Progress" too early, as the the Start Date field could be manually cleared for a "reset".

Kind regards,
Bill

[Cristóbal González]

Nice and good approach @Bill Sheboy I'll take into consideration.

Many thanks!

[Trudy Claspill]

I like this answer better than mine!

[Trudy Claspill · Accepted solution]

Hello @Cristóbal González 

When asking for help with an Automation Rule it will help us to help you if you provide screen images showing the complete rule.

You could add a JQL Condition like this:

This JQL is checking that the issue that just transition to In Progress was never in the In Progress status before 1 hour ago. You may want to refine that window to something like "-5m" (5 minutes ago).

If an issue was previously in the In Progress status, then any steps after this would not be executed.

[Cristóbal González]

@Trudy Claspill I just created the rule adding an IF condition and it worked perfectly!

For the future I will add screen shots.

Thanks a lot!