Our new Appfire Documentation Space is now live!

Take a look here! If you have any questions please email support@appfire.com

Sequence of post-functions

Owned by David Fischer
Last updated: Jun 16, 2022 by Richard Stone[Appfire] (Deactivated)
5 min read

A post-function that runs a sequence of JMWE post-functions on the current issue or issues related to the current issue. This is the easiest way of making sure that a series of post-functions run in a predictable order during a transition - it is easier and more reliable than using Delayed execution as was previously recommended.

For example, if you need, during a transition, to first create a new issue (using the Create Issue(s) post-function) and then send a notification email mentioning the new issue (using the Email Issue post-function), you need to make sure that the first post-function has finished running before starting the second one, which is something that Jira Cloud doesn't guarantee if you don't use a Sequence.

To add the 'Sequence of Post-functions' 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 Sequence of post-functions from the list of post-functions.

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

  7. Click on "Add post function"

  8. Add the required post-functions

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

See here for a use case of this post-function.

Common to all post-functions:

Related links



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. 

When you add this post-function to a transition and trigger it, each post-function defined in the sequence is run, one after the other on the target issues. 

Issue(s) to operate on

Select the issues on which the sequence of post-functions should be run. They can be:

  • Current issue: Select this option to run the sequence of post-functions on the current issue. This is the default option.

  • Sub-tasks of the current issue: Select this option to run the sequence of post-functions on the sub-tasks of the current issue

  • Parent issue of the current sub-task: Select this option to run the sequence of post-functions on the parent of the current issue

  • Issues that belong to the current issue (Epic): Select this option to run the sequence of post-functions on the issues that belong to the current Epic

  • Epic of the current issue: Select this option to run the sequence of post-functions on the Epic of the current issue

  • Child issues of the current issue in the Portfolio hierarchy: Select this option to run the sequence of post-functions on the child issues of the current issue in the Portfolio hierarchy

  • Parent issue of the current issue in the Portfolio hierarchy: Select this option to run the sequence of post-functions on the parent issue of the current issue in the Portfolio hierarchy

  • Issues linked to the current issue through any link type: Select this option to run the sequence of post-functions on all issues linked to the current issue

  • Issues linked to the current issue through the following link type: Select this option to run the sequence of post-functions on the linked issues of a specific link type. Select the specific link type under “Issue link”

  • Issues returned by the following Nunjucks template: Select this option to run the sequence of post-functions on 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"

    • {{ targetIssue.fields.parent.key }}

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

  • Issues returned by a JQL search:  Select this option to run the sequence of post-functions 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 = {{ targetIssue.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 targetIssue.fields.assignee %} assignee = {{targetIssue.fields.assignee._accountId}} {% else %} issuekey=INVALID-1 {% endif %}

      Note that 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).

Passing variables within a sequence

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

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 to subsequent post-functions as:

{{ context.myVar }}

 Note that this variable will not be available in the Nunjucks tester. 

Variables specific to the Create Issue 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:

Error handling

If one of the post-functions fails with an error, the remaining post-functions in the sequence are run anyway. To stop the execution of subsequent post-functions after an error occurs, select the option “Skip subsequent post-functions if a post-function encounters an error”.

Conditional execution

To execute this post-function based on the result of a Nunjucks template see Conditional execution.

Delayed execution

Use case

A typical use of this workflow post-function is to run a list of post-functions in sequence considering the asynchronous nature of post-functions. Consider a use case where you want to clone an issue and its subtasks to another project, then:

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

  2. Select the “Target issues” as “Current issue”

  3. 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: 

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

    4. Configure the fields

    5. Click on Save

  4. Add another "Create issue" post-function to clone the sub-tasks

    1. Select the destination project in "Project"

    2. Select the "Issue type" as "Subtask"

    3. Under the "Parent issue" input the following template:

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

    5. Save the post-function.

  5. Click on "Save"

  6. Publish the workflow.

Refer here for more use cases.