For our readers that are newbies in the Atlassian ecosystem, Jira is a centralised platform dedicated to the efficient coordination of any company’s projects. What makes it so popular? People love to use this tool because it helps them easily manage small or complex projects while consistently ensuring efficient communication, adapted to the specific context of the team. It is basically built with the aim of keeping the staff organised, focused, and efficient.
Some of the most complex projects out there are the software development ones. And Jira was born from the need of tackling this challenge of handling ever-changing plans, while keeping different teams aligned with the agile decisions. These days Jira is the number one agile software project management tool, but it became so much more than that.
Jira has evolved to fit the needs of any other team or project, be it HR, marketing, or sales. It is designed to eliminate possible misunderstandings, unjustified delays, or simple human errors, with the purpose of making everyone’s work more efficient and obtaining better and faster results. Keep that in mind: it can handle any kind of project — you dictate the working mode, and the platform makes it easier for you.
Automation in Jira explained
Automation is not something new in Jira. It’s been one of its strengths for a long time, what is new is the simplicity that the Atlassian Intelligence brings in designing automations for your company.
Now, with just a description of what you want to automate, you can seamlessly create Automation rules and let Atlassian Intelligence take care of the intricate process of formulating these rules for you. You’ll be amazed at how quickly Atlassian Intelligence crafts the rule, significantly reducing manual clicks — leaving only a quick review for you to complete.
The platform provides you with multiple cross-work functions, some of the most popular being:
– following up with task evolution and the ongoing issues
– the possibility of designing personalized workflows
– advanced reporting instruments for monitoring work and team progress
– create roadmaps and use the backlog function to maintain a clear view of your priorities.
Even though all these functions are extremely useful, let us introduce you to one of the most practical ones: automation.
It’s common for teams to lose lots of time doing small tasks, which unfortunately consume valuable time that can be used in a more productive way. That’s exactly what automation is made for, so you can do the work that matters the most, without losing focus or reducing the quality of your work.
To get a better understanding of how it works, be aware that automation relies mainly on rules, both standard and custom-made. These rules have three key components:
– triggers – set the rule’s intention
– conditions – adapt the rule depending on what you or your team needs
– actions – make the rules work and fulfill tasks.
What is easier than explaining the logic through an example?
Let’s say a software development team wants to automate the workflow to move tasks through a development process. It’s very simple:
– When a developer marks a task as “In Progress,” the system automatically assigns it to a reviewer based on workload.
– Once the task is moved to “Code Review,” the automation sends a notification to the reviewer, and if no action is taken within three days, it sends a reminder.
– After the reviewer approves the task, it automatically transitions to “Done,” updating the project status and notifying the original assignee.
– This reduces manual steps, keeps the team informed, and ensures tasks flow efficiently.
How to automate a task?
We’ll continue with the example above to showcase how simple this is.
We can simply design this kind of automations with the help of Atlassian Intelligence, through natural language. A few initial steps to follow:
– Go to your Jira project, then select Project Settings — Automation
– Click on the Atlassian Intelligence icon and describe in simple terms what you want the rule to do. For example, you could type: Automatically assign developers tasks labelled In Progress to a reviewer. Then update its status to Code Review and send a notification to the reviewer.
– Based on your input, Atlassian Intelligence will suggest a pre-configured automation rule or guide you through building a custom one. It will break the rule into triggers, conditions, and actions. Review the suggested rule, make any necessary adjustments (e.g., changing the conditions, adding more actions), and test it before activating it.
– Once you’re happy with this initial automation, continue to build on it with the AI’s help: When the reviewer approves the task, update the status to Done and notify the developer. Then the spiral continues: review the AI’s suggestion and edit it as needed, and you can continue to build more and more complex automations, all through natural language.
– Essential tip: Make sure that the rule actor has the required permissions to execute the automated actions and use the audit log for monitoring if the rules run accordingly, identifying any potential errors. In the end, these steps will help you use the automation function efficiently and improve your team’s performance.
There are some more advantages that this tool brings, like the branching function, made to extend automation in other aspects of your project, or the use of smart values for ultimate customization, which relates valuable data from Jira. But this is subject to a future article on our blog section. 🙂
Conclusion
Do you have any doubts that the automation in Jira is a game-changer when it comes to eliminating repetitive tasks and raising your team’s efficiency? Just reflect on the example described above and count how many clicks we’ve spared, not to mention the human error avoided.
Don’t let the team’s productivity suffer anymore, this impacts both the business targets and the employees. The solution is at-hand: start integrating innovative tools that will not only lay the foundation for a stronger, more confident team, but help you achieve your business goals with fewer things to worry about and a stronger organization.
Hungry for More?
If this article made you think of how many processes you could actually automate inside your team or company, or that you’ve heard quite often from your team how they waste time on repetitive tasks, feel free to reach out and we can review your situation.
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