Workflow automation: 7 tasks to automate - Work Life by Atlassian

If you’re like most businesses, you’re always looking for ways to improve efficiency and optimize workflows. Jira is a powerful issue tracking and project management tool, but it can be even more powerful when you automate your workflow.

There are many different ways to improve your Jira workflow automation, and some of them don’t even require any coding! In this article, we’ll discuss ten different ways to improve your Jira workflow automation. Let’s get started!

1. Use Jira Workflow Automation Plugins – One of the Easiest Automation Techniques

Jira, on its own, is a great tool, but there are many different add-ons and plugins that can make it even better. That’s where Jira workflow automation tools come in. If you’re already familiar with coding, then there are many different ways to automate your workflows using scripts. You can use Java, Groovy, and even JavaScript to create custom scripts that help improve your workflows.

If you’re not familiar with coding, try using Jira’s built-in automation options or try one of the many different Atlassian Marketplace apps that don’t need you to have an intensive coding experience. You can always try Jira workflow automation tools for free before paying anything to make sure it’s right for you. And with a myriad of exceptional automation apps like Power Scripts and others that offer free trials, there’s no reason not to try them out!

2. Discover the Areas that You Can Automate

This may not be a direct tip for improving automation in your Jira workflow. However, it will help you better understand where to focus your efforts and what techniques will be the most beneficial for you.

One of the most effective ways to discover the potential areas that are suitable for automation is by watching your users. Try to find out how and why they do certain things, what their pain points are, what they hate or like about the tools at their disposal and more.

3. Make Good Use of Jira Service Desk Blueprints

Did you know that Jira Service Desk has an automation feature? To access it, open your project settings and then navigate to the Automation button. You can opt to use one of the blueprints that Atlassian offers such as ‘Urgent issue alert’, ‘Closed resolved issue’, ‘Comment update reply status’, and more.

Better yet, you can use these as inspiration to create your own rules. These rules are basically supposed to guide the system on what to do when a condition is met or broken (“when this happens, do this” or “if this is true, do/don’t this”). One of the most appealing benefits of using Blueprints to improve your Jira workflow automation is that you can customize the rules to make them suit your business’s needs better.

4. Utilize Assignee Alerts

There are times when we have too many things on our plates that we forget about one or two issues that need to be attended to urgently. If such a situation occurs, a manager would have to use the service desk project to identify users who have not responded to active issues for a couple of days.

They would then have to send messages/emails or write comments to poke the user to whom the issue has been assigned. However, it’s good to keep in mind that you can, right off the bat, automate this process using Jira Service Desk. All you have to do is to head to the project setting and open the automation rules.

Once inside, you can create a rule like “when a status remains in the ‘Investigating’ status for 5 days, add a predefined alert comment to the issue”.

5. Make Use of JQL to Create Automation Rules

A major convenience of using JQL to create automation rules is that you can exclude other issues in the same project from the automation rule. This can come in handy in a situation such as when you are attending to one user who’s got a specific priority and/or component. With JQL, you have the leeway to create rules that are as simple or complex as you would like.

6. Update Linked Issues Automatically

In cases where a certain user or member of your project is not available to respond to an issue or does not have enough privileges, it is usually important to escalate the issue to an agent who can handle it. This would typically be done manually on a frequent basis to ensure that issues are resolved on time.

But what about human error? To eliminate this hurdle, you can use the Jira “When a linked issue is transitioned” automation input to automatically escalate issues. Be sure, however, to select the right link types, such as “open” or “blocked” so that your rule can be functional.

7. Auto-Assign Issues

You can use several different ways to assign issues in a Jira project. The easiest is to set the default assignee to be one specific user. That user can then re-assign issues if and when required. This approach can, however, be cumbersome and strenuous to the default assignee since it’s not comminuted enough.

To tackle this challenge, you can make use of the different workflow operations that are found on Jira to assign issues with greater ease and efficiency. If, for example, you are handling a post function – which comes into effect after a transition (issue changing to a different status) – you can use the “Create transition” function in Jira to enhance your workflow process.

When using a post function, you can either:

  • Assign the issue to the user who transitioned it, which is basically the creator
  • Assign to the reporter
  • Assign the issue to a lead reporter
  • or use the “update issue field” function. The “update issue field” function creates an input field that you can use to assign the issue to a user that you feel is best suited to handle it.

8. Use Templates

Finally, creating workflow templates in Jira is a great way to save time and optimize your workflows. You can either create custom templates for different teams, or you can try using ready-made template options, depending on your needs. Using templates will help ensure that all tasks follow the same process and have consistent results.

To Sum Up

Jira provides a wide range of automation options that can be used to improve your workflow efficiency and performance. By making use of these different tips, you can save time and hassle – not to mention frustration! – in your workday. So try out some of these tips today, and see how they can help streamline your workflow process.