Global Automation When field changes from Discovery but reporting to Jira

[Afrothiti Manolis]

Hi!

I would like to run a report that flags when a field has changed. I've done this successfully when keeping in Jira but now that I want to use a field for this from Jira Discovery, it's showing up as a time stamp, even though I created the field as Date Picker and global field.  Can someone help me understand how to use a global field that I can use across Discovery and Jira

[Bill Sheboy · Accepted solution]

Hi @Afrothiti Manolis 

That is not a date / time stamp.  It is the special date field format used by Jira Product Discovery (JPD), and it is stored as plain text.  The type allows selection of...

• a single date (which is stored in both text attributes ,"start" and "end")
• a range of dates
• a month (which is summarized as a specific date in both attributes)
• a quarter (which is summarized as a specific date in both attributes)
• etc.

There are several posts describing how this field type is not yet supported by JQL.  Additionally, I do not believe global date / time picker fields can be added to a JPD project yet.

I believe the only workarounds for this need are:

• use an automation rule to parse the JPD date for storage / reporting in a text field, or
• perform the query of the JPD date field in an automation rule (or external code)

Kind regards,
Bill

[Afrothiti Manolis]

HI @Bill Sheboy  Thank you for the response! I do not know how to write this script. Do you by chance know how to do this? I would very much appreciate steps to take in automation....

I believe the only workarounds for this need are:

• use an automation rule to parse the JPD date for storage / reporting in a text field, or 
• perform the query of the JPD date field in an automation rule (or external code)

Reminder here is what I am trying to change into MM-DD-YEAR

[Bill Sheboy]

First thing, to get you started on creating your rule, please refer to these documentation and example sources:

• https://www.atlassian.com/software/jira/guides/automation/overview#what-is-automation
• https://www.atlassian.com/software/jira/automation-template-library#/rule-list?systemLabelId=all&page=1&pageSize=20&sortKey=name&sortOrder=ASC
• https://support.atlassian.com/cloud-automation/docs/jira-smart-values-issues/

Next, to convert one of the JPD date values to the format you want, here is a step by step to get to the final result:

{{issue.someJPDdate.substringBetween("end\":\"","\"").toDate.format("MM-dd-yyyy")}}

• First, confirm you have the correct smart value (or custom field ID) for your field using this how-to article. 
• Extract one of the values using text functions, and let's assume the "start" and "end" dates are the same, so we will use the "end" value

• Convert the text value to a date type

• Format the result as "MM-dd-yyyy" (Please note using "y" rather than "Y" is probably what you wanted.)

[Afrothiti Manolis]

Hi @Bill Sheboy  Hmm.. I read all your docs and still am showing the special date field....

---

{{issue.Afro launch.substringBetween("end\":\"", "\",").toDate.format("MM-dd-yyyy")}}

is what I am using (Afro Launch is the custom field.)

I'm still seeing...

[Bill Sheboy]

What I suggested will not change the display of the field. 

Instead I suggested extracting the date value for display as text in another field.

[Afrothiti Manolis]

@Bill Sheboy Got it! After hours of debugging, got it to work. Thank you for your time and continued response!! 

[Afrothiti Manolis]

HI @Bill Sheboy Thank you for the response! I do not know how to write this script. Do you by chance know?

I believe the only workarounds for this need are:

• use an automation rule to parse the JPD date for storage / reporting in a text field, or 
• perform the query of the JPD date field in an automation rule (or external code)

Reminder here is what I am trying to change into MM-DD-YEAR