Updating of (custom) field changes in Automation
Asked by reno.dormanns:

Hello,

In our JSM environment I've started to notice that newly created custom field values (and also custom field name changes, for instance) are very slowly updated for use in the Automation. The "Edit issue fields" action either does not find a newly created field or finds a field with its old name. Eventually it seems that the Automation updates, but this can take more than a working day. Features like screens and forms do not seem to suffer from this.   

Is there any way to push (custom) field changes to the Automation?

Thank you,

Reno Dormanns  

<br />

Edit:  
It's gotten even more interesting. I have updated a field option a few hours ago. I need to change the option in my Automation as well. A conditional uses it:

![Cond.png](https://community.atlassian.com/t5/image/serverpage/image-id/340462iBFDB119BC1C3F282/image-size/large?v=v2&px=999 "Cond.png")

I have changed GDPR form to GDPR \*registration. It doesn't update for this condition. Even funnier, if I create a new "Edit issue" action \*in the same rule\* and I select the field IT HAS THE UPDATED ANSWER IN IT:

![reg.png](https://community.atlassian.com/t5/image/serverpage/image-id/340464i47294B48FD816E2B/image-size/large?v=v2&px=999 "reg.png")

So different actions within the same rule can have different versions of fields. Does anybody understand what Atlassian is doing here??


Answers:
author: Shane Johnson
body: I've seen this same issue multiple times over the last few months.   

Something as simple as fixing a capital letter on a custom field actually breaks all automation that uses that field.  

Sometimes, it is NEVER updated in the Automations, and you have to manually go through every single one and update it to the new field. I would assume that the Automation should know the Custom Field ID, but updating a single letter causes all sorts of problems.

comments: author: reno.dormanns
body: The updating you're talking about is a different kind of updating than I meant. I also have to manually change the Automation to select the newly named field. However, sometimes the name itself hasn't even updated. So I can't even manually select the changes that I've made to the fields until some random time later.

I don't think the Automation works with field IDs. You can even see the "Edit issue" action mention something like "deleted field?" when you've merely changed a field name. It for sure is annoying, yes.


author: John Funk
body: Hi Reno,

After you create the new custom field or change the name, simply refresh your browser tab with the Automation rules. The field will immediately show up.

comments: author: reno.dormanns
body: Hi John,

The issue really is that they do not immediately show up. I work from the Global Automation and I approach that link multiple times a day and on Thursday I had a certain field not update its name for over 24 hours.

That field has now come around, but the next time this happens I will provide screenshots as Lisa below suggests.

The created fields I was waiting on today also randomly came around as I was deleting old Automation rules. Maybe, in some way, that triggered field updates, I have no clue..


author: John Funk
body: Weird - I have NEVER seen it take that long. Screenshots would help. But you should also notify Atlassian whenever that happens.


author: Lisa Forstberg
body: Hi Reno! Welcome to the community!

Some slowness can be expected, but I have not seen the levels of latency that you mention.

If you work on an automation, then add a custom field in jira administration and then go back to the automation then the automation might not have the most recent data.

Make sure to save your automation, refresh the page and then edit your automation again.

Also please be aware of that some automations don't like the customfield name to be changed. Always make sure to check automations involved when changing that.

best of luck

/L

comments: author: reno.dormanns
body: Hi Lisa,

Thank you for your quick response!

One thing that I can imagine affects this latency, would be our amount of active custom fields, which is 481 currently. We're still developing and testing and therefore we do not expect that number to stay this high, although I'm confident it will exceed 100 at all times.   

Refreshing unfortunately does not seem to be the solution. I can even make *new* Automation rules that do not seem to be updated with the current field names. In other Automation rules, however, the fields did/do seem to be updated, which almost leads me to believe each Automation rule has its own field mapping (and this is related to the latency)?

I do wonder if there are any other users that experience the same levels of latency and what amounts of custom fields are involved.

Reno Dormanns


author: Lisa Forstberg
body: Tricky thing!

I am currently working on multiple sites that have more cf's than you and I am not seeing this kind of behaviour. Using field context on cf's is a good way to limit the load on your environment though.

I would screen capture this behaviour and send it off to Atlassian support if I were you.

/L


author: reno.dormanns
body: Thank you! I will take a look at the contexts.

I've began cleaning some very old Automation rules and the fields finally came through. Maybe those were related, maybe not ?\\_(?)_/?


Tags: automation

cloud

custom-field

jira-service-management

jira-service-management-cloud