Update Any Issue Field Post Function

 

JSU for Jira Server/Data Center

This is the documentation for JSU for Jira Server/Data Center. If you are using JSU on Jira Cloud, see our JSU Cloud documentation.

Description

The Update Any Issue Field post function updates any field to a specified value after a transition has been completed. This can be a system- or a custom field. The field can be on the issue in transition(within the same issue) or on a related issue, like a subtask, a linked issue, or an issue within an Epic (during the transition on the Epic). In addition to setting values to fields, the Update any Issue Field post function can also add comments.

Configuration

You must specify the field to update and the corresponding value.

Example configuration of the Update Any Issue Field post function.

Precondition

We use the Update any Issue Field post function like this in the 'Start Progress' transition of our Story issue types. If the Story is part of an Epic, the Epic status will be set to In Progress.

In the past, users forgot to change the Epic status in time and it was left as To Do. Using JSU this does no more happen.

Update field on all issues related as

The field can be on the issue in transition(within the same issue) or on a related issue, like a subtask, a linked issue, or an issue within an Epic (during the transition on the Epic).

See Related Issues for more explanation on this topic.

Perform As User

Issue field values

When defining field values, ensure that the value you enter is valid for the datatype of the selected field. Also verify that the context configuration for the project that uses the workflow will allow the modifying of the selected field. If not, the transition may fail at execution time. 

Typically you will use text or numbers as values.

See: Post Function Concatenation Operations

***new internal note*** applies only for Jira Service Management (JSM) project issues. For non-JSM projects, the regular comment is updated with the field value you define for ***new internal note***.

Cascading Select fields

For Cascading Select fields, you can either use the value of the option you would like to set, or its ID. In either case, there is no need to specify the parent option. For example:

  • Vehicles

    • Car

    • Train

    • Bus

  • Buildings

    • House

    • Skyscraper

Using Vehicles as the parameter for Field Value would set the field content to that option; similarly, if you use Train. 

Field reference macros

JSU supports the use of macros to reference data or issue field values when configuring some post functions, for example, Update Any Issue Field, or in the Set and Copy operations for the Create a Linked Issue post function.

Legacy system field references

Support for referencing the Current User, Previous User, and Current Date and Time is provided by using the macro syntax below. You can use only one legacy macro at a time to set or update a field. Legacy macros cannot be combined with the

  • %%CURRENT_USER%%: The user who triggered the post function will be set as the value.

  • %%PREVIOUS_USER%%: The field is updated with the previous user assigned to the field. This is valid for single-user picker fields in the ‘Update Any Issue Field’ post function.

  •  %%CURRENT_DATETIME%%: The current date and time will be set as the value.

  •  %%ADD_CURRENT_USER%%: OBSOLETE The user who triggered the post function will be appended to the existing field content.

Obsolete since JSU version 1.4.10: %%ADD_CURRENT_USER%%

Use the option 'Append value' combined with the macro %%CURRENT_USER%% instead.

Extended system and custom issue field references NEW

From version 2.43.0, you can reference any issue field using the prefix issue followed by the field name, for example, %%issue.Assignee%% or %%issue.Labels%%. This syntax can be used in the Update Any Issue Field post function and with the Set and Copy operations for the Create a Linked Issue post function.

Multiple field references

You can provide multiple issue field references using macros, for example, you can update a Description field so that it references %%issue.Approver%% is %%issue.Reporter%% where approver is a custom field. Similarly, you can update a comment field with %%issue.Approver%% update %%issue.Creator%% on change to %%issue.Security Level%%.

Position of the post function

It is important to place the post function in the correct order of other post functions.

Create Transition

The Create transition is the first transition, which does not yet have a source status (only destination status - usually Open, but could also be another). Instead of using the Update any Issue Field post function in the Create transition, you might consider configuring a default value for that field.

If you are using the Update any Issue Field post function in the Create transition, you must put it after the "Creates the issue originally." but before the "Re-index an issue to keep indexes in sync with the database." post function. Depending on the field type, you must add the Store Issue post function after the Update Any Issue Field.

Example configuration of a post function on the Create transition.

In step 4 the "Store Issue" post function is needed, which you must add manually in the workflow configuration. In our example, we use a Workflow Precondition before the Update any Issue Field post function.

Any other Transition (not Create)

Use the Update any Issue Field post function anywhere before the Update change history for an issue and store the issue in the database post function

Examples

  • See the above example of a Story changing the Epic Status of its Epic. Or, whenever a parent issue is set to In Progress, the assignee of all its subtasks could be set to the current user (the one changing the status on the parent).

  • A developer fixes a bug and proceeds in the Jira workflow to the Resolved status (this might be triggered from his code pushed to Bitbucket). The 'Update any Issue Field' now adds the label 'testing-required'.
    There are also cases when you need a more complex solution. Have a look at Testing and Fixing Bugs.

For more information on how to configure a post function in Jira, see the Jira documentation.