Automate Jira for projects, and for other software tool, it is important because it brings more productivity and collaboration to teams, it allows them to focus on what is important.
In this post, we will show how to automate the tasks in Jira which are directly related to the project information, going over basic concepts, a bit of history, and technical aspects of the configuration.

The automation of projects in Jira, as well as other aspects, have always been mainly by means of apps from the Atlassian Marketplace, giving the instant benefit of getting rid of repetitive tasks, trigger actions according to different criteria, and the like when the aim is to model processes beyond those provided by Jira, or simply when the goal is to let users save time, which is one of the main advantages you will get if you use the advice we offer in this blog post.

Let's go over the basic concepts:

What is the automation of a project?

Prior to defining this concept in its entirety, it is important to define each separate aspect.

Consequently, a project in Jira does not necessarily have to be the same as a project, and as a result, we can affirm: the automation of a project is the action of delegating all possible tasks to reach projects’ objectives, to technology (Jira, in our case.)

How to automate projects in Jira?

As we mentioned at the beginning of this blog post, one of the ways is to rely on the option of using apps from the Atlassian Marketplace: Profields and Automation for Jira; with these two it is possible to achieve the project automation in Jira based on the automation of tasks which are directly related to the project information in Jira. Let's take a look at what each of them does:

•    Profields for Jira Data Center, Server and Cloud, is an app available on Atlassian Marketplace which enables project tracking based on fields and customizable properties of a project, notifications, bulk operations, and the creation of reports at a glance about Jira projects. Learn more about it in the following video:

•   Automation for Jira is an app also available on the Marketplace that enables to automate actions that would otherwise need manual intervention or coding. This can be achieved by means of rules where Triggers, Conditions, and Actions are configured.

But first, history lessons are important to get the context:

How did the integration between Profields and Automation for Jira come up?

In year 2016, a company called Code Barrel surprised the Atlassian Ecosystem with an app called Automation for Jira. This app succeeded in making easy the difficult task of automation, making the less advanced users to succeed without the need to develop or create complex configurations.

Automation for Jira was such a success that it won the Codegesit prize as the best IT app that year, and they became seller of the year the following one due to its great growth.

Code Barrel’s latest step has been marked by the acquisition of Automation for Jira by Atlassian, and recently, its addition by default in Cloud instances; Learn more about it in the following video:

The new face of Profields represents a relevant solution in the matter of handling the project information in Jira.

Consequently, in DEISER we have been considering for some time the possibility to integrate Profields with Automation for Jira. But it was in 2019, after interviewing some users, when the need to integrate both applications became a reality, since users were demanding it.

We contacted Andreas (co-founder of Code Barrel) to tell him our idea and get to know his impression of our proposal. Once approved, we conducted research to prioritize the functionalities this integration could support. After performing their prioritization and definition, we designed the components to be developed which would take the automation beyond the issue tickets in Jira.

When mentioning “taking automation beyond issue tickets,” we refer to the automation for Jira based on project information coming from their storage in Profields.

Technical challenges when automating a project in Jira

The automation in Jira is one of the challenges we, the ones in charge of the Jira administration and the “fine-tuning” of the tool have historically faced, either for making a process easier, and/or reducing repetitive tasks.

The most technical common challenges we usually find when automating projects in Jira are:

•    Updating a project field according to an X event.
•    Notifying X users about a change within a project.
•    Performing a concrete action in Jira only if a certain field in the project has a concrete value.

Let’s get on with it!

How to automate projects in Jira with Automation for Jira & Profields?

This integration coordinates Profields with Automation at every level that this other app offers, that is the following elements:

1. Three Triggers.
2. A Condition.
3. An Action.

Profields and Automation for Jira are integrated at every level possible related to automate project information.

For every case, we posed an integration around Profields’ fields, and we have incorporated two components in the Triggers that will allow users to capture events even beyond Profields.

1. Triggers

This are the elements allowing the automation to be triggered. Remember that, with this integration, we added 3 new Triggers, which are aimed at:

1. Automating tasks when a Jira project has been created (Project Created): Setting up this trigger will be possible to notify in your Slack or Teams channel the moment that a Jira project has been created.
   
   
2. Automating tasks when a Jira project has been removed (Project Deleted): If you want to notify the Jira Administrators when a project has been removed, choose this Trigger, and configure the action “send email” to the desired group.
   
   
3. Automating tasks when the value of a Profields’ field has been modified in a Jira project (Project field value update): Among other possibilities, this Trigger generates a notification for the Jira Administrators indicating they can archive a project. To achieve that, configure a task to be delivered to administrators once that the Project Lead or responsible sets the project in “archived” status.

Automate events based on changes occurred in a project property from Profields.

We have not only focused on Profields’ fields. Instead, we have made a step further by enabling users to capture those events of project creation and removal.

2. Conditions

In which cases should automations be executed within Jira projects? When defining these situations, the conditions offered by Automation for Jira are needed for making that decision.

Considering that users make their decisions on their projects based on the fields offered by Profields, we added a Condition which allows users to choose whether the automated action will or will not be triggered, according to a Profields’ field.

If you want to receive a daily notification with only the information about the “high” priority projects updated, this condition will prevent receiving notifications about every project in Jira instead.

Automate tasks from projects, according to one or more values associated with one or more fields previously created in Profields.

3. Actions

Actions are, basically, the tasks you want to automate, and this integration enables to automate the update of the Profields’ fields.

Automatically update one or more project property field values with Profields and Automation for Jira.

Imagine you want to change the status of a project every time an issue is created, in the video bellow you can see how to achieve that with this integration.

Allow the project information stored in Jira (through Profields) to respond to automations by integrating it with Automation for Jira. It will take three simple steps:

1. A default Trigger from Automation is added: Issue Created.
2. We added an Action in Automation to update the project status to “Live.”
3. We fire the automation by creating an issue and checking how the project has changed.

So, Why is project automation important in Jira? Automate projects in Jira is important because it will help to reduce errors in different processes, allow teams to focus on activities beyond the tool, and to save time. It's time to make the tool work for you and not the other way around.

Share your experience automating projects! We want to learn how do you use with this integration, or how do you think it could be useful. Tell us your experience with your automations with Automation for Jira and Profields. Email us here.

If you want to know more about the app, get a free trial of Profields available at the Atlassian Marketplace, if do you have doubts about its functionalities check our blog, contact us, and/or pass by our Customer Support Desk. We will be more than happy to assist you.

Do you feel ready yet to start tracking and automating projects in Jira using Profields?
If that's the case, take a look at the e-book below, it contains different use cases explaining how to automate tasks directly related to the project information in Jira, with Profields and Automation for Jira.

This blog post is the product of a collaboration between Leo Díaz with the support of the Marketing team.