Automate "when start date is added, add start date +140 days to end date

[Melody KirkWagner]

Hi, all. I'm trying to Automate:

Trigger: In the Start Date field, a date is added

Action: add 140 days to the Start Date and enter into the End Date field

I've tried the appended rule, and it works perfectly...as long as "start date"=now. My complication is that the start date may be in the past or future. 

I also tried a scheduled rule, but issue with the action is exactly the same.

Any advice?

[Bill Sheboy · Accepted solution]

Hi @Melody KirkWagner 

Smart values are name, spacing, and case-sensitive.  I believe the smart value for the Start Date field is "Start date", so please try this:

{{issue.Start date.plusBusinessDays(140)}}

You can confirm the smart value for a field using this how-to article.  Essentially you identify an issue with your field, call the REST API with a browser, and then search for your field in the results to find the correct smart value.

https://confluence.atlassian.com/automation/find-the-smart-value-for-a-field-993924665.html

Kind regards,
Bill

[Melody KirkWagner]

Yes! That worked - thank you, Bill. Any idea why the End Date field didn't automatically show up on the face of the ticket since it now has a value?

[Melody KirkWagner]

@Bill Sheboy  - just tagging you - for some reason tagging was working in my message above

[Bill Sheboy]

I am glad to learn that helped!

Regarding the End Date field, is it added to the issue view?  If so, you may want to check with your Jira admin to learn why it is not visible.

[Melody KirkWagner]

It's added to the issue and it shows up on the face of the ticket when there's a date in it. In the case of automation, it has a date added to it, but doesn't show on the face of the ticket. Not the biggest deal.

[Bill Sheboy]

Interesting...do you mean on the issue on the board, in the backlog, or somewhere else?

I know that not everything in Jira automagically refreshes on the page/view when changes are made.  When you do a page refresh does the field value appear?

[Melody KirkWagner]

We just have tickets - they're for tracking only. They're all Epics. So I'm just looking at a single Epic. The End Date is under the Edit menu, because it's empty. 

• If I manually open the Edit menu and add a date to the End Date field, when I close the Edit menu, the End Date field will appear with the date on the face of the ticket
• If I create an entry in the End Date field via automation, the End Date is filled in, but it does not appear on the face of the ticket

And no, refreshing doesn't work. If I open and close the edit menu, it does, but that defeats the purpose. Since I'm sending out filtered lists for people to review, I'd like it to appear in the detail view, but it's not a deal-breaker, especially since I just discovered that they can't filter by End Date. :-(

[Bill Sheboy]

That sounds like a defect to me...I am not using Jira Server / Data Center and so I can experiment with what you are observing.

When you note you cannot filter by End Date, is End Date a field you added?  Normally the two built-in fields are Start Data and Due Date for planning ranges.

Can you send people the filter rather than the issues?  This would work if they are Jira users.

[Melody KirkWagner]

Yes, I do send filters. And yes, it is a custom field. In hindsight, I wish we'd used due date, but it wasn't the message we wanted to send.

I'll check with our Jira team to about the not showing up on the face - they'll be able to see it.

Thanks so much for your patient assistance, Bill. I greatly appreciate it.