I’m working on a Product Research project in Jira where we mainly use the “concept” issue type. I need help with configuring automated rules but I’m having trouble getting them to work correctly.
Here’s what I’m trying to achieve:
When a new concept gets created: The system should automatically populate the Start Date with the beginning of the current quarter and set the End Date to the start of the following quarter
When the status changes to “research”: Both date fields need to update automatically where Start Date becomes the current month’s beginning and End Date gets set to 3 months ahead
Has anyone set up similar automated date assignments before? I’d really appreciate any guidance on how to structure these rules properly in the automation engine.
Timezone handling caught me off guard when I set up similar rules. Make sure your Jira instance timezone matches your quarter boundaries - otherwise date calculations get messed up by hours or days. Learned this the hard way when Q1 items got tagged with December dates. Also, add a 10-15 second delay before date updates. Jira sometimes needs a moment to process issue creation before custom field updates work right. The automation engine gets temperamental with back-to-back actions. Double check field permissions too - automation needs write access to those date fields or rules fail silently without obvious errors.
i totally feel u on that! audit logs are super handy for figuring out what’s going wrong, especially with smart values. and yeah, make sure your fields are indeed custom ones, or you’ll have a tough time with automation. good luck!
I’ve handled this exact scenario before. You’ll need two automation rules in Jira’s native engine. First rule: trigger on “Issue Created,” add a condition for issue type = “concept.” In the action, use “Edit Issue” to update your custom fields. For quarters, use {{now.withDayOfQuarter(1)}} for start and {{now.plusMonths(3).withDayOfQuarter(1)}} for end. Second rule: trigger on “Field Value Changed” watching for status changes to “research.” Use {{now.withDayOfMonth(1)}} for current month start and {{now.plusMonths(3).withDayOfMonth(1)}} for your three-month target. Warning: smart value syntax is super finicky. Test everything in sandbox first - wrong date calculations will wreck your project timeline.