Link issue to existing EPIC

[jbeg]

Hope someone knows a way to resolve the following task:

Trigger: Rule is triggered when an issue is transitioned from status A to B.

What should the rule do: If an EPIC (in this case with the same name as the issue) exists, link the issue to the existing epic.

Problem: Via edit issue and selecting the field Epic-Link i can only choose

• Current issue
• Parent issue
• Epic issue
• Trigger issue

I assume that none of these is the right one . So I figured that i could use the advanced option to manually set the epic-link - but this only works with the issue key of the epic - not the name. 

{
  "fields": {
  "Epic-Link": "{{issue.summary}}"
  }
}

So, either I need a way to get the Epic issue key or a different approch to this problem.

[Bill Sheboy · Accepted solution]

Hi @jbeg 

For a question like this, please consider posting an image of your complete rule and an audit log entry from a failed run.  That will provide the community some context to try to help.  Thanks!

You do not indicate if you are using Jira Cloud or Server/Data Center, so I am going to assume for now "Cloud"...

• Trigger: issue transitioned from A to B
• Action: lookup issues on JQL to find the desired epic
• Condition: {{lookupIssues.size|0}} = 1
• Action: edit the issue to set the epic link to {{lookupIssues.key}}

When adding the value to the edit, type in the value {{lookupIssues.key}} and it will appear below the field, then select it to use the smart value.

Best regards,

Bill

[jbeg]

Hi Bill, 

thank you very much for the reply. We are using Jira Server - so if I am not mistaken, the lookup feature is not available. 

This would probably solved my quesion the way you described it. Unfortunately this feature ist not available on server https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/JIRAAUTOSERVER-53

Are there any other solutions?

[Bill Sheboy]

Hi @jbeg 

For server without Lookup Issues, how about a slower work-around using the bi-directional nature of issue links...

• Trigger: issue transitioned from A to B
• Branch: on JQL to find the desired epic matching your criteria
  • Action: add a link of a type you do not use to the trigger issue.  Perhaps, split from/to
• Action: re-fetch to reload the trigger issue's data and see the added link
• Action: edit issue to set the epic link to the key value in the specific link added.  You may need to use a regular expression to yank out the key

Please note that I haven't tried this as I do not have server version, so let me know how this works (or doesn't ;^)

__Bill

[jbeg]

Hi @Bill Sheboy ,

this was a quality answer! Thank you very much!

It is quite a workaround and complex for just such a simple task - but for the server version quite nessescary as it looks. 

I got the link key from {{issue.issuelinks.first.outwardIssue.key}} so no regex magic was needed.

Thanks again for your help