How to Set Up a Jira Automation (2 Methods)

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Published in Apps on 24/04/2024, last updated 29/04/2024.

Jira is a powerful, highly customizable tool used by teams of all sizes. You could be an engineering, IT, marketing, product, operations, or any other business team working on countless projects and issues to get things done. 

But wouldn’t it be nice if some of the tedious parts of task management were automated? In this article, we’re going to take you through why you should leverage automation, and what your best options are. 

Why set up a Jira automation?

It’s easy for even the smallest of business teams to be flooded with Jira issues. Within those issues, there are usually many fields that relay different types of data with every update. The data gets granular quickly. 

It can be tricky for everyone to cross every T and dot every I 100% of the time when making updates. Especially when they have to ensure every relevant issue is updated in the same way for maximum progress visibility. This is where automation comes in. 

If you could update the “priority” field in one issue, for example, and every matching issue in the other Jira projects was instantly updated in the same way, it would be a game-changer. Every department would be properly looped in without having to sift through each project. 

That sounds like a dream, right? Let’s make it a reality so your team can get back to the work that matters most.

First method: Using built-in Jira automations

Jira supports setting up simple automations right within the tool. You could set issues to sync between projects, auto-assign, and status update with a handy rule configuration. It’s easy to get started with these steps:

1. From your Jira service project, select project settings then automation.

Under the Rule Details section, you can start a new trigger. Jira will give you recommended triggers or you can search keywords in the search bar. 

2. Select the trigger that most fits your use case, and follow the steps.

The steps in this section will vary depending on the trigger you’ve selected, but once you’ve followed all the steps you can click Update to apply all of your changes and turn the automation on.

3. Once your automations are set up, you’ll see them displayed as a list. From here you can toggle them on or off, click on them to make changes, or view the history logs.

Limitations of this method

While you may assume setting up automations directly within Jira is the simplest route, keep in mind that there are some limitations to this method. 

Set up is time-consuming

With this method, setting up each individual rule can be time-intensive. Following the setup steps each time and ensuring the same rule is applied in every relevant project is tedious work. Also, there are tons of templates to sift through, and it’s a long process to decipher which ones make the most sense for your workflow.

Rules only work one-way

When using this method, users must build triggers to complete an action that works in one direction and then they must make it again for the rule to perform in the opposite direction, effectively doubling the work. 

Too many cooks in the kitchen

Anyone can build a Jira rule, making it a free-for-all with automations in each project. The need for constant alignment on who needs to build what can be a bit of a bottleneck in the workflow.

Second method: Set up a Jira automation with Unito

For our second method, we’ll take a look at the integration platform Unito. Unito supports a breadth of use cases, and here’s why it’s your best bet for automation. 

Set up is fast and straightforward

Setting up a flow with Unito is always just four simple steps. Unito also auto-maps some of the process for you, and if you need to repeat the process there’s a handy “duplicate” button that’s got you covered. 

You can choose between one-way or bidirectional syncing

Are you looking to clone issues into separate projects? Unito can automate that for you, and you can choose to sync one-way or bidirectionally to cut down on setup time. 

Grant Unito access to only the right champions

Invite the applicable users to your Unito workspace, where you can easily set everything up, access the activity stream for simple auditing, and quickly build out your workflow. No need for your whole team to individually build automations.

80% of Unito’s user base is non-technical, so you’ll have no issues setting this up. Here’s just how simple it is. 

1. First, connect the Jira projects you’d like to sync.

2. Next, determine the direction of creation. This is where you can choose a one-way or a bidirectional sync.

3. Then, use rules to determine what gets synced, and where it lands. You can also set the default issue type.

4. Decide which fields you’d like to keep updated between projects, and which direction you want the updates to push. Again, you can choose between one-way or bidirectional. You also have the option to let Unito auto-map this step to save time. Unito supports both native and custom fields.

And that’s it! You’re ready to live-sync the automations between Jira projects with a configuration your whole team will understand. 

Make automation simple with Jira, and beyond

Aside from Jira automations, Unito supports use cases such as data migrations, ticket management, reporting, external collaboration, or ITSM incident triage for tools like ServiceNow.