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Advanced configuration and usage of the Create issue(s) post-function

Owned by Radhika Vijji. (Unlicensed)
Last updated: Mar 15, 2022 by David Fischer
7 min read

This document explains how to get more out of the Create issue(s) post-function such as creating multiple issues, linking newly created issues together, setting the field values of the newly created issue from the iterator and so on.

On this page:

Creating multiple issues

Using the "Multiple issue creation" feature of the Create issue post-function you can create multiple issues at once during the execution of this post-function, optionally linking them to the current issue. The iterator template is a Nunjucks template that must return either a comma-separated list of values or an array of values, in JSON format. The post-function will iterate over this list or the array of values and create one new issue per value. The below sections explain some of the use cases.

Create one issue per value and set a field of the newly created issue

To create one issue each for the users jdoe,tblack and dcharlie and assign the newly created issues to the respective user

  1. In the Iterator section input

    jdoe,tblack,dcharlie

  2. Go to Set fields of new issue section

  3. Under Additional fields select "Assignee"

  4. Click on Add

  5. Select Set field value to option from the drop-down

  6. Input this template:

    {{it}}

To create one issue per user in a multi-user-picker field, and assign the issue to that user

  1. In the Iterator section input

    {{ issue.fields["Multi user picker"] | join(",","accountId") }}

  2. To assign the newly created issues to the respective user:

    1. Go to Set fields of new issue section

    2. Under Additional fields select "Assignee"

    3. Click on Add

    4. Select Set field value to option from the drop-down

    5. Input this template:

      {{it}}

You can similarly create multiple issues for values in any multi-values field like Affects Version/s, Component/s etc.

Build an iterator to create multiple issues and set fields of the newly created issues

Instead of a list of values or an array of values as in the examples above, each value in the list can be an arbitrary JavaScript object with multiple values and each object will be available through the it variable in the rest of the post-function configuration. For example, if the iterator returns the following:

[ {"assignee":"55usdhf7682njsio", "summary":"Issue for John Doe"}, {"assignee":"53suf8683jskdh622e", "summary":"Issue for Tim Black"} ]

then with the "Iterator returns JSON" option is set, two new issues will be created. Under the "Set fields of new issue" you can set the Summary of the newly created issue to:

{{it.summary}}

and Assignee to:

{{it.assignee}}

Create issues from a combination of two custom fields

You can create multiple issues from a combination of two single-select custom fields and set the respective fields of the newly created issue. For this, you'll need to generate an array of all possible combinations and provide it in the iterator. One issue will be created for each combination. Let's assume you have two Multi-select fields Resource and Environment, then your iterator logic will be something like:

Iterator logic

{% set arr = [] %} {% for resource in issue.fields['Resource'] %} {% for env in issue.fields['Environment'] %} {% set unused = arr.push({resource:resource.value,environment:env.value}) %} {% endfor %} {% endfor %} {{ arr | dump(2)}}

Select the "Iterator returns JSON" option, since the iterator returns an array of objects.

Setting fields

In the "Set fields of new issue" section, set the Resource field to:

{{it.resource}}

and the Environment field to:

{{it.environment}}

Cloning an issue and its linked issues

Using the Sequence of post-function post-function you can clone an issue and its linked issues too. Let's assume on the trigger of the transition "Clone now" you want to clone an Epic and its Stories to a different project.

Create a sequence

  1. Add the "Sequence of post-functions" post-function to the transition

  2. In the sequence add the "Create issue" post-function.

    1. Select the destination project in "Project"

    2. Select the "Issue type" as "Calculated" and input

      {{ issue.fields.issuetype.name }}

    3. Select the "Link to new issue" as "clones"

    4. Configure the fields

    5. Click on Save

  3. Add another "Create issue" post-function to clone the linked issues

    1. Select the destination project in "Project"

    2. Select the "Issue type" as "Calculated" and input

      {{ it.fields.issuetype.name }}

    3. Select "Multiple issue creation" option and input the following template:

      {{ issue | linkedIssues("blocks",['key']) | length }}

    4. Select “Linked Issues” under “Set fields of new issue”

      1. Select “Set field value to Groovy expression”

      2. Input the following code:

        [ { "type": {"name":"Blocks"}, "inwardIssue": {"key":"{{transition.context.newIssueKey}}"} } ]

    5. Save the post-function.

  4. Click on "Save"

  5. Publish the workflow.

Now when you trigger the transition "Clone now" the Parent and its subtasks are cloned to the new project.

Link newly created issues

When using the "Multiple issue creation" feature of the Create Issue post-function, you can link the newly created issues together. There are two approaches to this as explained below. Consider you are creating 3 issues and this is your iterator script:

[ { "summary":"A first issue" }, { "summary":"A second issue" }, { "summary":"A third issue" } ]

Using the newIssueKeys variable

This is a very generic approach in which you can use the newIssueKeys global variable that exposes the array of the issue keys of the issues already created by the post-function during previous iterations. For example, if your iterator value is an array of three values (three issues will be created), during the creation of the third issue, newIssueKeys global variable array holds the first two issue keys. This way, you can add in your Iterator objects information about the links to create between issues.

For example:

  • Add linking information to the above array as shown below with the "Iterator returns JSON" option selected, where

    • linkTo: represents an index pointing to the issue to be linked to. 0 for the first issue, 1 for the second issue and so on.

    • linkTypeName: represents the name of the link type to be created, like, Blocks

    • direction: represents the direction to be linked to, like, outward

      [ { "summary":"A first issue" }, { "summary":"A second issue", "linkTo": 0, "linkTypeName": "Blocks", "direction": "inward" }, { "summary":"A third issue", "linkTo": 1, "linkTypeName": "Blocks", "direction": "outward" } ]

       

  • Under the "Set fields of new issue" select Linked Issues field