Jira Automation is a no-code rule builder that enables users to build “if-this-then-that” rules to automate their processes. Automating Jira workflows can help organizations reduce repetitive work, improve process efficiency, ensure greater consistency, and gain better visibility into the progress of tasks and projects.
Jira customers looking to extend automation beyond built-in features can use third-party apps. These apps range from no-code options to apps that give admins flexibility with full scripting, so Jira admins with any level of technical ability can create and manage automated workflows.
How can you decide which option is best for you: Jira’s built-in automation or third-party apps?
In this comprehensive guide, you’ll learn more about automating Jira, how third-party apps come into play, and some best practices when setting up automation in Jira, no matter which approach you use.
Built-in automation in Jira
Built-in automation features are those already found inside an application or solution. They enable you to automate already-owned software before exploring or buying new technologies. You get the operational flexibility of using an ecosystem you’re already familiar with while reducing costs because you already own the technology.
Jira has built-in automation features to help you automate project tasks by single project, multi-projects, or globally. Integrate it with external tools like Slack or Bitbucket and optimize Jira workflows from one app. Atlassian’s Automation Template Library makes it easy to get started with the built-in automation.
Choose from predefined templates for DevOps, business, and other software without building it yourself. Customize the template in the Automation Playground to work how you need it to. You can’t just export the customized template yet, but you can replicate it in your own instance using the template as a guide.
Jira’s automation capabilities
Jira’s automation capabilities offer a wide range of features, including:
- Rules that automatically perform predefined actions based on triggers and conditions, such as auto-assigning issues to users or updating multiple fields simultaneously.
- Trigger events to initiate the automation, such as issue creation or status updates.
- Conditions that determine whether an automation should be executed. They help ensure that automations are performed when specific criteria are met.
- Scheduled automations occur only at specified intervals or dates and times. Useful for recurring Jira tasks such as generating reports or sending reminders.
- Cross-project automation that enables automation rules in Jira to apply to multiple projects at once. Useful for teams managing multiple projects with similar workflows.
- Integration with third-party tools like Slack, Microsoft Teams, and PPM Express to facilitate communication and collaboration within and across teams.
One challenge to automation in Jira is that use is restricted to rule run limits based on the Jira product and edition. For example, standard Jira Software users are limited to 1,700 successful rule actions per month across all types (project, multi-project, or global rules.)
Let’s take the basic example of a mid-sized company with 200 users: 1,700 rule runs might seem like a lot. But when you break it down, it amounts to a limited number of automations per week.
For instance, if every ticket update triggers an automation, each team member can only make two ticket updates per week before you hit the automation limits. And if you’ve set up multi-step automations, it might be even less. This limitation could disrupt the workflow and efficiency of your team’s operations.
Use cases for Jira’s built-in automation
- Sync parent and sub-tasks: Use this to keep your parent and sub-tasks in sync. When a sub-task moves to “In Progress,” the parent task is moved to “In Progress” too.
- Auto-assign issues to your team: Use this to assign tasks to your team in a balanced way so no one is overworked and no one can cherry-pick the work they like best.
- Schedule tasks: Use this to ensure all tasks are updated or completed on time. For example, if a task is waiting on a response from someone, the automation can send that person an email reminder. Or, it can auto-close stale tasks or issues beyond a certain date.
- On/off board employees: Use this to automate all the HR tasks for new or leaving employees. Ensure everything’s included and is done on time.
- Update issue status when there’s no assignee: Use this for any issue created without an assignee. Sometimes people forget to attach someone to work on it, so this automation can change the status to “To Do,” adding it to the relevant user’s task list.
Step-by-step guide on setting up an automation rule in Jira
Automation rules in Jira are made up of three parts: triggers that kick off the rule, conditions that refine it, and actions that are performed. Each one must be defined before the automation can run. For detailed instructions on setting it up, refer to Atlassian’s Help page.
Third-party automation apps
Jira's built-in automation capabilities cover many basic workflow needs, but depending on how your team works, you might need more flexibility.
A robust way to extend your Jira automation is to use a third-party workflow and automation solution. These apps enable you to customize Jira the way you need and build even complex automations and integrations with external data sources.
Another benefit of using workflow and automation apps is that they offer unlimited automations for all teams, regardless of whether your team’s using standard or premium Jira. Given the limits Jira places on built-in automation executions, third-party apps become especially important if you need seamless automation capabilities across diverse Jira environments.
The right workflow and automation solution can handle all the above automations and more. Here are a few use cases that illustrate what you can do when you have third-party automation apps integrated with your Jira instance.
Use cases for third-party automation
- Send an MS Teams message to the team whenever an issue is about to breach an SLA.
- Update Jira issues with context from external apps to reduce context switching for users.
- Maintain app security and governance with automated user role rules to monitor and maintain access and issue reassignment when people move internally or leave the organization.
- Improve advanced search features so users can search through attachments, sub-tasks, comments, versions, and links throughout Jira.
- Surface “hidden” Jira fields to increase transparency of tasks and issues and reduce compliance risks for your team and organization.
- Efficiently bulk clone and customize Jira issues when working with similar workflows in multiple projects to save hours.
Example: If you’re developing a mobile app for Android and iOS, your development projects are essentially the same. They might involve different teams, users, and platforms. But the tasks and workflows are the same. Being able to bulk clone an entire project (or parts of it) for both development teams saves you time and effort.
Comparing Jira’s built-in automation to third-party workflow and automation solutions
How do you know if the built-in Jira automation is enough or if you should use a third-party workflow and automation solution? Here are some factors to consider when you’re making that decision.
Rule execution limits
- Built-in Jira automation: It has rule limits on multi-project and global rules based on your Jira product and edition.
- Third-party automation apps: Unlimited rule executions regardless of Jira product and edition.
Task ordering options
- Built-in Jira automation: It creates rules denoting an action to be taken and offers no conditions or validators to enforce processes or the order in which actions are taken.
- Third-party automation apps: Add conditions and validators to enable task ordering of your business processes and reduce the risk of workflow failures.
Options for different levels of admins
- Built-in Jira automation: Most of the built-in automation features of Jira are easy to use, with a few subtleties only tech-savvy admins would be able to script. The more advanced scripting options require admins to learn a new coding syntax only useful in Jira.
- Third-party automation apps: A well developed workflow and automation solution offers a range of tools that suit any admin’s technical ability and time investment. There’s something for everyone, whether you’re a business-only user or an advanced command-line-only admin.
External data integration
- Built-in Jira automation: Some data may not be readily accessible through the built-in Jira automation. For example, data residing in external systems or databases not directly integrated with Jira may be difficult to access and incorporate into native automation workflows.
- Third-party automation apps: Display previously inaccessible information via new reports, screens, and search filters, and integrate external systems and data sources via REST API or webhooks.
These are just a few factors you’ll want to consider when deciding between Jira’s built-in automation and third-party solutions or apps. Your organization, industry, and teams are unique: Only you can decide which option works best for you.
Best Practices for Effective Jira Automation
If you want to create effective and successful automations in Jira with any automation option, we’ve gathered a few of the best practices to remember.
- Clean up your team’s processes: Your automations will only be as good as the processes they model, so before you start any coding, look at your processes. Review and fix the ones you’ll automate, combine ones that work better together, and eliminate the ones you no longer need.
- Plan the rules before creating them: Much like a chef’s mise-en-place, a little pre-planning goes a long way in automating processes. Start with the process and the actions you want to occur, then work backward to the events that’ll trigger those actions.
- Align your automations with your processes: Automation rules are there to optimize your processes and make them work more efficiently. Otherwise, you’re just duplicating work or making a mess of it. Review the rules and align them appropriately with your processes.
- Check the scope of your rules, conditions, and actions: Only some things need to be a global rule or always trigger an action. Verify the scope of the automation to minimize wasteful rule executions and unnecessary bandwidth usage.
- Combine rules: Some rules work better alone, especially if it’s a single-project one, but sometimes they can work better together. Always look at your rules to see if they can apply in different situations or projects, and then add conditions or triggers that change their behavior instead of having separate rules for each endpoint.
- Maintain and optimize your automations: Regularly review the effectiveness of automated processes to identify opportunities for improvement. That way, you ensure that your automated processes are ready to handle evolving demands as you scale your business.
Go with built-in or use third-party automation? The choice is yours
Companies looking to add more automation to their work often start by looking at their existing tech stack. Are there ways to automate those tools and apps without adding anything new?
For Jira customers, the answer is yes. Jira’s built-in automation is a no-code rule builder you can use to reduce repetitive work, improve productivity, ensure consistency, and gain better visibility into task statuses.
For those looking to move beyond the built-in options, there is Appfire’s Workflow and Automation solution. They’re third-party apps that do everything from cloning issues between projects to customizing complex automation workflows across multiple projects, teams, and apps. Admins with any technical level can create, manage, and optimize automated workflows.
Use Appfire apps to automate simple workflows in a drag-and-drop environment, or create scheduled and event-based automations. For example, the advanced scripting app Power Scripts for Jira helped one organization reduce ticket backlog by 50% by giving admins access to deeper levels of automation, customization, and integration with third-party apps.
Another success story shows how a second company increased project capacity by 30% without adding staff, while another saved 400+ hours per month on redundant, repetitive, and error-prone tasks.
Especially in today’s distributed work environment, automation can help keep projects on track, increase collaboration, and keep everyone updated automatically. Automate Jira to intuitively reduce process friction, improve efficiency, and give back the most precious resource to your team: time. Let them focus on their most meaningful and creative work while the automation handles the necessary admin tasks to support them.
For more on Appfire’s Workflow and Automation solution, check out our blog. Or, find a partner that can help get you started.
