Can you create an automation for a single board in a project?
Asked by Michael James:

Hi,

In our organisation we have it setup so each business area has a project and under that project each team has a board.

I'm trying to work out how I create an automation for a single board so I don't impact the other teams in our business area. For example I may want to create a set of subtasks for each story created by a member of the team.

Has anyone managed to do this?

I could list each member of the team but it's not very future proof and also some of out Product owners work across multiple teams so it would make it difficult if they are creating stories for another team that doesn't need the same automations.

Hope this makes sense!


Answers:
author: Mykenna Cepek
body: Unfortunately, Automation Rules in Jira are configured against specific Projects, not Boards. The solution here is simply going to have to accommodate that.

Based on the Filters you shared for your Boards, it looks like each filter is for a single Project. So that aligns well with each Rule being configured for a single Project.

You'll probably want to use Conditionals with JQL to replicate the Board Filter for that Project. I see your Filters use functions and fields that aren't supported by automation, so JQL is the only way to put your Filter logic into the Rule.

I'd recommend starting with really simple Rules initially, even if that means several Rules to manage for a short while. Then look for opportunities later to combine them to minimize maintenance.

(The combination of Rule Trigger and Board Filter will likely drive Rules that can be combined. Combined Rules might also be able to make good use of "if/else block" conditionals. But again, consider postponing this effort.)

Take a look also at the "User Conditional" with the "Check to perform" field set to "is in role". That might help to group users, or identify Product Owners, etc, depending on how you define your Roles. This might really help manage your user complexity.

As an alternative, you could instead define new User Groups. If multiple Rules might apply to the same groups of users, that might help prevent having to code users directly into the Rules. But remembering to update a User Group may be an extra burden.

Hope some of these ideas will help!


author: Bill Sheboy
body: Hi [@Michael James](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/1624686)

Two more ideas to try:

* First thing, You noted two queries for your boards. If you run each of those queries stand-alone in advanced issue search are there \*any\* issues where appear in both result sets? If so, the queries are not independent and so that would explain what is happening with the rules.
* Next thing, it may help if you provide images/details of your rules which are not working as you expect. That may uncover why issues are appearing on both boards.

Kind regards,  
Bill


author: Lisa Grau
body: Hi [@Michael James](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/1624686) ,

each board has it's own filter. You can limit the automation to only act on issues that match the filter of your board.

comments: author: Michael James
body: Thanks Lisa, I've tried that but it doesn't seem to be limiting it to those issues. Anything I do seems to be global across the entire project.

Maybe we're not using the correct filters for boards or something.


author: Lisa Grau
body: How do you differentiate what is displayed on which board? What attribute do you use?


author: Michael James
body: Thanks Lisa,

for the two boards I'm looking at they have been setup with two different queries;

project = XXX AND issuekey in portfolioChildIssuesOf(XXX-9758) ORDER BY Rank

project = XXX AND "Team\[Team\]" = 28 ORDER BY Rank

I've tried entering these queries when setting up the automation and they validate but then once activated and a new issue created the automation works on both boards which is not what I want to happen. I'm hoping to set automations specific to each board.

Really appreciate you taking the time to help me :)


author: Lisa Grau
body: Did you try it like this?

![grafik.png](https://community.atlassian.com/t5/image/serverpage/image-id/167633i838E3DCAB872E63D/image-size/large?v=v2&px=999 "grafik.png")

I used the condition for related issues and checked the issuekey of the parent issue. That should work out.


author: erin_fowler
body: Any chance you can repost this in English:)


author: Luther, Namit
body: [@Michael James](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/1624686) remove the Order by condition.

Only keep : project = XXX AND "Team\[Team\]" = 28

This should help


author: Steve Tobin
body: [@Luther, Namit](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/4989993) if you remove the ORDER BY RANK condition then ordering on your boards will cease to work which is likely even a worse place to be...?