Shared Action post-function

Owned by Daniel Barrow
Last updated: Oct 04, 2024
4 min read

A post function that runs an Action (a sequence of one or more JMWE post-functions), created in the Shared Actions page, on the current issue or issues related to the current issue.

JMWE shows an error message on the issue view if any error occurs during the execution of the post function. This message is only displayed if the current user is a Jira administrator. 

To add the 'Shared Action' post function to a transition: 

  1. Click Edit for the workflow that has the transition, you wish to add the post-function on.

  2. In the Workflow Designer, select the transition.

  3. Click on Post Functions in the properties panel.

  4. Click on Add post function.

  5. Select Shared Action post-function from the list of post-functions.

  6. Click on Add to add the post-function on the transition.

  7. Select the target issue. See Issue(s) to operate on, below.

  8. Select one of the listed Shared Actions. See Shared Actions for more information

  9. Click on Add to add the post-function to the transition.

Issue(s) to operate on

Select the issues on which the Shared action should run. They can be:

  • Target issues

    • Current issue - Run the Shared action on the current issue. This is the default option.

    • Sub-tasks of the current issue - Run the Shared action on each sub-task of the current issue.

    • Parent issue of the current sub-task - Run the Shared action on the parent of the current issue.

    • Issues that belong to the current issue (Epic) - Run the shared action on each issue that belongs to the current Epic.

    • Epic of the current issue - Run the Shared action on the Epic of the current issue.

    • Child issues of the current issue in the Portfolio hierarchy - Run the Shared action on each child issue of the current issue in the Portfolio hierarchy.

    • Parent issue of the current issue in the Portfolio hierarchy - Run the Shared action on the parent issue of the current issue in the Portfolio hierarchy.

    • Issues linked to the current issue through any link type - Run the Shared action on all issues linked to the current issue.

    • Issues linked to the current issue through the following link type - Run the Shared action on the linked issues of a specific link type. Select the specific link type under “Issue link”.

    • Issues returned by the following Nunjucks template - Run the Shared action on the issues returned by the result of a Nunjucks template. Input a Nunjucks template which is a comma-separated list of valid issue keys. For example:

      • "TEST-1"

      • "TEST-1","TEST-2"

      • {{ issue.fields.parent.key }}

      • {{ issue.fields.subtasks | join(",", "key") }}

    • Issues returned by a JQL search - Run the Shared action on issues returned by a JQL search. Input a JQL search expression. For example:

      • project = TEST returns issues of the project with the key TEST

      • project = {{ issue.fields.project.key }} and assignee = {{currentUser._accountId}} returns issues of a project that belong to the project with key TEST and the assignee is the current user

        {% if issue.fields.assignee %} assignee = {{issue.fields.assignee._accountId}} {% else %} issuekey=INVALID-1 {% endif %}

Note: The {% if %} block is necessary to avoid an invalid JQL query when the issue is unassigned. In that case, the template will return a valid JQL query that returns no issue (issuekey=INVALID-1).

  • Description - Give this instance of the Shared action a description.

Shared Action

Select the Shared Action to execute. See Shared Actions for more information on creating these types of actions.

Advanced Options

Error handling

  • Stop the action if a post-function encounters an error - By default, even if one of the post functions fails with an error, the remaining post functions in the action will still run. Select this option to stop the execution of subsequent post functions after an error occurs.

Conditional execution

Delayed execution

Passing variables within a sequence

Using the {% setContextVar %} Nunjucks tag, you can pass data from one post-function to all subsequent post-functions.

context: Holds all the context variables added in the current post-function. For example, if you create a context variable myVar in the first post-function of the sequence:

{% setContextVar myVar = "a value" %}

This variable will then be available in subsequent post-functions as:

{{ context.myVar }}

Note that the context variable will not function correctly when used in the Nunjucks Template tester. 

Variables specific to the Create Issue(s) post-function

newIssueKey: Stores the issue key of the last issue created by a Create Issue(s) post-function in the sequence. You can access it as:

newIssueKeys: Stores an array of the keys of all the issues created by any Create Issue(s) post-function in the sequence. You can access the created issues from

For example: to add a comment on the current issue with the keys of the issue created

You can access the information of a specific issue using the issue filter. For example: To get the assignee of the issue created by the Create issue post-function:

On this page

 

Shared Action post function configuration screen
Figure 1 - Shared Actoin post function