Automation in Jira Service Management

How to access automation in Jira Service Management

First, to access automation settings in Jira Service Management, navigate to your Project settings () in the lefthand menu > Automation.

Now let’s discuss the key components to build automation rules in Jira Service Management.

Rules

Rules allow you to automate actions within your system based on criteria that you set. Automation rules are made up of three parts: triggers that kick off the rule, conditions that refine the rule, and actions that perform tasks in your site.

Triggers, conditions, and actions are the building blocks of automation. Simply combine these components to create rules that can do anything from alerting an agent when a high-priority issue is created or reopening an issue if a customer comments on it after it has been resolved.

Triggers

Every rule starts with a trigger. They kick off the execution of your rules. Triggers will listen for events in Jira, such as when an issue is created or when a field value is changed.

Triggers can be set to run on a schedule and can be customized before being applied to a rule.

Conditions

Conditions allow you to narrow the scope of your rule. They must be met for your rule to continue running. For example, you can set up your rule to only escalate an issue if it is high priority.

If a condition fails, the rule will stop running and no actions following the condition will be performed.

Actions

Actions are the doers of your rule. They allow you to automate tasks and make changes within your site. They allow you to perform many tasks, such as editing an issue, sending a notification, or creating sub-tasks.

Related issues

Issues in Jira rarely exist in isolation. They often contain sub-tasks or are simply linked to other issues using certain relationships. This means that when using automation, actions often need to apply, not only to the source issue that triggered the rule but also to any issues that are related to the source issue.

Special conditions and actions are available to create powerful rules that can work across complex issue relationships. For example, checking that all sub-tasks of a parent issue are resolved.

Smart values

Smart values allow you to access and manipulate a wide range of issue data within your site. They can add significant power and complexity to your rules. Smart values allow you to access issue data within Jira. For example, you can use the following smart values to send a Slack message that includes the issue key and issue summary: {{issue.key}} {{issue.summary}}.

Rule actor

The rule actor is the user who executes a rule. This user must have the relevant permissions to trigger the rule, and complete any actions that may be performed. For example, if a rule is created that will comment on an issue when executed, the rule actor must have the Add comment permission, otherwise, the rule will result in an error.

In your site, the rule actor will be set as an Automation app user. However, you can now change the rule actor for your automation rules.

Rule status

You can view the status of an automation rule to identify if the rule is currently active or not. If a rule is inactive, it will not execute until it is enabled. The status of a rule can be seen on its details screen.

• ENABLED - The rule is currently active.
• DISABLED - The rule is not currently in use.
• DRAFT - The rule has unpublished changes.

Audit log

Each of your rules will have an audit log that you can review to see when the rule was triggered, the final result of the execution, and any actions that may have been performed.

You can view the audit log of an individual rule, project-wide or at a global level. Reviewing your audit logs is an effective way of debugging your rules.

Examples of common automation use cases in Jira Service Management

Automation allows you to create rules to address countless use cases. So, where should you start? Here you’ll find how to access your automation settings and a collection of common use cases to help get you started with automation. You can find more automation templates in our automation template library and test your own rules with our automation sandbox environment.

Auto-assign issues to your team

When a Jira issue gets created, often it does not have an assignee by default. Automation in Jira Service Management gives you the flexibility to auto-assign issues based on the conditions that you specify. For example, you can auto-assign issues based on the current workload of your agents.

Auto-close old Jira Service Management support tickets

Customers will occasionally be slow to respond or stop responding completely. Jira Service Management allows you to use a scheduled automation rule to seek out old Jira tickets that customers have not responded to, close them and comment for transparency. Below is an example of how to close and comment on an issue that has been open for 5 days with no activity from the customer.

Re-open issue if customer comments on a closed issue

When a customer comments on a closed ticket, this automation rule ensures the issue gets reopened, reassigned and comments are added to the issue letting the customer know the issue has been reopened.