Do you want to increase the efficiency of project management in your company? Automation in Jira might be the answer to your needs! In this article, I discuss how task automation in Jira can speed up processes, save time and resources, and streamline your team’s work. Discover practical tips on automatic task assignment, status updates, notification generation, and much more. Don’t wait – click “read more” to find out how to harness the full potential of Jira and automation in your company!
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Jira is a powerful project management tool that enables tracking progress, assigning tasks, and organizing team work. One of the key aspects of Jira is the ability to automate processes, which allows for time and resource savings. In this article, we will take a look at how to use automation in Jira to make project management more efficient and productive.
What is automation in Jira?
Automation in Jira is a way to simplify and speed up project management processes by automatically performing repetitive tasks. This includes functions such as task assignment, creating notifications, updating statuses, generating reports, or creating task templates. Automation in Jira is based on rules and conditions that define what actions should be performed in specific situations.
Practical Tips for Task Automation in Jira
Assigning Tasks Automatically
Automatically assigning tasks can save time and resources for the team, especially when there is a need to evenly distribute work among team members. To do this, you can set up rules that will automatically assign tasks to team members based on certain criteria, such as workload, availability, or expertise.
The first place to set up automatic task assignments is in the project settings’ detail view:
In this view, at the bottom, you have the option to set a person who will be automatically assigned to each new task, unless someone indicates another person. Another place where you can manage automation related to assigning people to tasks is the Automation tab, accessible from the left menu, below the project details:
In this place, we can use ready-made templates for automating task assignments, e.g., we can assign a person to a task after its status has changed. The most obvious example of such automation usage is assigning a task to a tester after the developer changes the task’s status to “ready for testing” or “coded,” depending on the chosen project workflow.
One of the more interesting options is selecting the person assigned to a task based on workload. Imagine you have three testers on your team. Jira can automatically assign a new task to the tester who is least busy with work at that moment.
In the discussed case, it would be necessary to choose a user with the tester role and let Jira assign tasks based on the workload of people whose role in the project is a tester.
Automatic Task Status Updates
Automation of task status updates can help maintain the current state of project progress. This can be achieved, for example, by automatically changing tasks to “in progress” after exceeding a certain time threshold or after completing related tasks.
Let’s say we’re working on releasing a new software version in which, among other things, we’re fixing user-reported bugs. Tasks describing the bugs have the status “resolved” but not “done.” We can set up automation so that after releasing the version, we click “released” in Jira concerning the version, and all bugs with the “resolved” status are automatically moved to the “Done” status.
Automatic Notification Generation
Jira can automatically generate email notifications for team members when specific events occur, such as task status updates, new task assignments, or upcoming deadlines. Automatic notifications can be customized to the team’s needs and various notification channels can be used, including the very popular Slack in the developer environment.
Continuing from the paragraph above, if we release a new version to production, it’s a great moment to thank the team for their work on the tasks and inform business owners and other interested parties that the new release has just appeared in the production. In Jira, this can be easily done by setting up an automatic notification, for example, on a specified Slack channel. You can read more about Jira integration with other tools here: How to integrate Jira with other tools?
Creating Task Templates
To ensure that each task contains all the necessary information and is consistent with other tasks in the project, it’s worth using the task template feature in Jira. Templates allow for quick task creation with predefined fields that can be customized to the team’s needs. You can also add automation rules that will work based on the information entered in the template, for example, automatically assigning tasks to the appropriate people or setting the right priorities. While on the project settings screen, select “Issue types” from the left menu, and you’ll be taken to a view where you can add new task types and fully configure them using the “drag and drop” function.
In the upper part of the screen, there is a visible button “Edit workflow”. After clicking on this button, you will be taken to a screen that allows for almost any kind of workflow editing for each task type separately. More on this in a separate article.
Automation of Reports and Data Analysis
Reports and data analysis are crucial for monitoring project progress and identifying areas that require attention. Jira offers reporting tools that can be automated to regularly receive up-to-date information about the project. For example, you can set up automatic generation of reports on completed tasks, deadline overruns, or resource utilization.
After entering the project view and selecting the reports tab:
We have a choice of many predefined reports. However, at the very bottom of the left menu, we have the “Other” option, and within it, the “Workload Pie Chart Report” allows us to independently configure a report related to the workload of specific tasks for designated individuals or teams. If you need a detailed report, this option will surely interest you. More about reporting in Jira, you can find it here: Jira Documentation.
Using Global Rules and Project Rules
In Jira, you can create automation rules both at the global level and at the level of individual projects. Global rules apply to all projects in Jira, while project rules apply only to a specific project. Using rules at different levels allows for better control of automation and customization to meet the needs of each team.
To access global-level rules, you need to go to the automation tab in the current project, and then a “Global administration” button will appear in the upper-right part of the screen.
Creating automation rules at the global level works exactly the same as at the project level. More about Jira configuration, you can find here: Jira configuration, how to configure Jira?
Integration with other tools
Jira also offers the possibility of integration with other tools, such as Slack, Trello, or Google Sheets. These integrations allow for automatic information transfer between different platforms, which streamlines team communication and makes it easier to track project progress. For example, you can configure automation that, upon task completion in Jira, automatically updates the corresponding card in Trello. I have written more about integrating Jira with other tools in a post titled: “How to integrate Jira with other tools?”
Conclusions and Benefits of task automation in Jira
In summary, automation in Jira brings significant benefits, such as increased efficiency, time and resource savings, better organization, consistency, and access to reliable data. By using these features, project management becomes easier and more effective. If you found this article valuable, please share it with others and leave a comment under this post.
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