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ScriptRunner just made Jira Workflows easier than ever
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A magic wand waves in front of a jira board
Mo Backer
Mo Backer
21st October, 2021
Jira
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ScriptRunner just made Jira Workflows easier than ever

Take a peek at ScriptRunner for Jira’ Server and Data Center's biggest ever improvement on Jira Conditions, Jira Validators and Jira postfunctions.
You may have noticed that we’ve been trickling out a raft of new workflow features over the last couple of months: new Jira validators, conditions and post functions aplenty.
Put together, these updates amount to ScriptRunner for Jira’s biggest ever improvement on workflow functions. 
For Server and Data Center, we’ve introduced entirely new functionality, we’ve improved existing workflows, and we’ve also made usability much better to help you make use of these new features more easily than ever before. 
Yes, the on-premise development team has been very busy; let’s take a look at some of what they’ve been working on. 
Here’s a summary of some of the key changes we’ve made. Strap yourselves in!

First things first, FINDING ScriptRunner workflows could never be easier

ScriptRunner’s workflow functions now sit alongside all other Jira workflows. No more switching between multiple menus and tabs, it’s all there in a single list! To help you identify which workflows are being provided by ScriptRunner, you’ll notice that they are now marked with a [ScriptRunner] at the end of the name so you can easily tell where it’s come from.
A moving image shows that ScriptRunner workflow functions are now appended with the word ScriptRunner in square brackets

New Jira Conditions and Validators coming out of our ears...

Workflow conditions based on users? Completed it mate.

Let’s say you only want a Product Manager to transition issues to “Done”: you can now set that as a condition using ScriptRunner’s User Conditions workflow function. You can define these rules using include or exclude criteria - whatever most closely resembles your best practice processes!
"We’re delighted to be bringing all of these new, built-in workflow functions to our users. We want to put power in your hands as quickly as possible and allow you to decide exactly how bespoke you want to get from there."
Andre Serrano, Adaptavist, ScriptRunner Lead Product Manager

Group level workflow conditions? No worries, we got you.

Let's say you have multiple Product Managers in your business who you want to permit to transition issues, as in the example above. Well, rather than having to add every user manually, you can instead set a Group level condition. Create a group called “Product Managers”, where users can be added or removed as necessary, centralising permissions and saving you time!

Conditions based on Project Roles? Yeah, that too!

So maybe you only want developers to be able to transition tickets to “In Progress”. As long as you have a role set as something like “Developer”, you can use ScriptRunner’s new Project Role Condition for exactly that!
Remember that Project Roles can be named and defined in any way that suits your business, so whether you’re an engineering team, a service delivery team, or a design agency, this can be a great way to start sharpening up and automating how work moves within your business.

Jira Regular Expression Conditions and Validators? Sorted.

Need to check that a social security field is populated correctly on Jira? Need to be certain that a ZIP code is entered in the right way? You can now use ScriptRunner’s Regular Expression Conditions or Validators to make sure issues are being updated exactly how your organisation needs them.

Conditions and Validators based on a User being added to a particular field? Easy.

If it’s important that a certain user is mentioned in at least one of the fields you specify before something else can happen with a Jira issue, we’ve got the User in Field Condition and Validator.
It’s as simple as it sounds: you specify the user and the fields to be checked and you’re off! The uses cases here are aplenty: e.g. In HR you can restrict recruitment tickets from being transitioned to “Offer made” based on whether the user is in a field like “Hiring Managers”.

Need a field to be completed before a transition? You shall not pass!

Let's say you have a field called “Hours worked” and you want this populated before an issue is moved to Done, or an estimated completion date field filled out as a ticket is moved to In Progress.
You can enforce this process step with ScriptRunner’s new Fields Required condition or validator! This can be used to help with estimating workload, ensuring project managers can communicate the most up-to-date information to internal or external customers; the uses are almost countless for enriching or enforcing your existing processes within Jira!

New post functions: small changes with a big impact

Need a comment added to an issue after it’s transitioned? Tick.

All you have to do is use ScriptRunner’s new Add a Comment to this Issue workflow function and you’re sorted! You can use this function to add a comment depending on a condition that you define (ie. if the ticket is being closed by a user with a certain role, after the target completion date, etc.), or every time the transition occurs. Your call.

Want to clear fields after a transition? Consider them cleared!

This Jira post function's pretty simple. Select the fields you want cleared for a particular transition and that’s that! There may be information that isn’t relevant to the next person in the process, or which needs resetting on transition, such as a field which tracks the number of days the issue has been in the current state. This function lets you clear the decks.

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So there they are: endless new possibilities for automating and customising how work moves through your organisation via Jira without compromising on the processes and checks that make things run to plan.
There are a tonne of other smaller updates we’ve made that we just couldn’t cram into this post. If you’re keen to learn more about those as well, please check out the release notes here.
We hope you manage to sprinkle these new Jira workflow functions into your instances! They definitely save a lot of time and effort!