A shiny new course on Automation for Jira Cloud

[#1]

I was excited to see the new course Jira Automation released by Atlassian. Why?

• It's new to the Atlassian University catalogue and as an Atlassian Authorised Instructor I'll hopefully be able to share this course with Jira Cloud users enabling them to get more out of their tools.
• Automation allows us to use technology to improve experiences as customers and service providers, augmenting what we do to make things more human. Removing time spent on mundane tasks from people allows us more time to focus on creative thinking, empathy, collaboration, and relationship building. For examples of this see Making the workplace more human with AI and automation.
• I learnt that this Atlassian tool available natively in Jira Cloud and as an app for Jira Server and Data Centre comes with a playground! 

Jira Automation is a 5-hour course build for Jira Cloud users who are familiar with Jira Cloud and want to improve their Cloud Classic projects with clever time-savers and integrations extending the out-of-the-box functionality to suit their needs.

There are seven modules supported by hand-on labs using Jira Cloud Classic projects. While there isn't a version of this course with Server labs, most of the content would still be helpful to those wanting to use the Automation for Jira app available in the Atlassian Marketplace for Server and Data Center.

From the simple building block format of When, If, Then (also known as the trigger, condition/s and action/s) automation rules can be simple or complex. Automation rules can apply to a single project or with Jira Premium can apply to multiple projects or globally to all projects. Automations can do all sorts of things including;

• Close epic when all stories have been completed
• If a high priority issue is created, make sure everyone who needs to know knows by sending a message to a Slack channel. 
• Set the due date of a parent issue to the latest due date of its subtasks.
• Email a list of keys for all open blocker issues in a project every morning at 9 am.
• Ask for customer reviews on Atlassian Marketplace whenever a customer leaves a high satisfaction rating on a Jira Service Desk issue.
• Group all AWS CloudWatch alerts for a given day in one ticket with subsequent alerts added as comments. Send a Slack message for each alert and delete any duplicate issues created when the same alert is received more than once a day. <---- Yes, all of this can be done in a single automation rule! 

Obviously this is just a small sample of the types of things that can be automated using Jira Automation.

The course also covered the administration tools associated with automation including audit logs and rule lists at both project and global levels; performance insights, usage statistics and rule execution limits; options to manage rules though copying, importing, exporting; ability to transfer all references from one user to another when there are team changes, and automation permission controls.

During the course you have temporary access to a lab environment to apply your new knowledge but the fun does not end there. The Jira Automation Rule Playground is always available for you to safely view and edit a range of automation rules in a place that will not affect yours or anyone else's Jira instance.

An important note about rule executions 

The rule executions are counted based on the number of times the rule is triggered not the number of times the conditions are met and an automated action takes place. There is a monthly limited depending on the product you use:

• Jira Software Free and/or Jira Service Desk Free - 300 monthly rule executions

• Jira Software Standard - 2000 monthly rule executions

• Jira Service Desk Standard - 5000 monthly rule executions

• Jira Software Premium and/or Jira Service Desk Premium - unlimited monthly rule executions

If you want to learn more about Jira Automation, contact an Atlassian Training Partner like the team at TechTime or check out Atlassian's on-demand and group options.

[Jimmy Seddon]

Great article @Kat Warner! I wasn't aware that this was a part of the library, but it's now on my list of courses I want to take!

[Gonchik Tsymzhitov]

It's really great article! :) Time to share with team members!