Global Automation - Automation run against multiple projects - Question on usage/results
Asked by Jonathan Smith:

Task: I am looking to notify specific **projects** about upcoming due items.

Since I am trying to be mindful of automation usage... I went to the global automations page and found the template "When a task is near due --- send email reminder". In this template, I can change the scope to multiple projects.

Questions on this:

1. When I change the scope to multiple projects and pick the projects, does that only equal 1 automation run (based on the schedule) or does it charge me an automation run per selected project?
2. What would be emailed to a user who is part of multiple projects? Would the user get a combined email with multiple projects' results or would it be multiple emails per project?

-----------------------------

**Update: Testing and Validation**

- Scope: single project = **1 use** (makes sense)

- Scope: multiple projects = **1 use** (validated)

- Email: Combined results based off of the template code:  
The following issues are due:  
**{{#lookupIssues}}**   
\<a href="{{url}}"\>{{key}} - {{summary}}\</a\>  
{{/}}  
-----------------------------------

For my group, this automation will work well and they won't have to manage filter subscriptions with users.

Thank you for the responses!

Jonathan


Answers:
author: Evgenii
body: Hi, [@Jonathan Smith](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/1254033)

1. Project scope affects on issues, with which will rule work. It won't affect on number of rule runs, especially when you run it by schedule. Run for 1 project in scope is exactly the same as run for multiple projects (but ut can take longer time, due to issue number)

2. It depends from rule. If there is one email for each issue - it will be a pack of emails. If it's configured to send list of issues in email body - it will be one email with list of issues from different projects


author: Jack Brickey
body: Automation usage is incremented anytime a rule runs successfully and results in an action, e.g. email sent. You might consider using a filter that runs daily or every Monday to indicate issues that are due. The pro to this is that it does not use automation at all. However, the con is that you cannot direct the email to specific assigned individuals.

comments: author: Jonathan Smith
body: We started to go down this route and was about to subscribe users to the filters, but I thought this "multi project" automation might be a more simple solution i++f it counts as one automation run.++


author: Bill Sheboy
body: Hi [@Jonathan Smith](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/1254033)

Adding to Jack's answer...

The packaging model for rules changed in October 2023. What this means is all rule executions do not count against the limits (only certain rule actions do so) and the limit counts are by the Atlassian products used (not by rule scope). Please review this information carefully to understand the changes: <https://www.atlassian.com/blog/announcements/cloud-automation-packaging-update>

Next, rules have other service limits, such as issue count, running time, looping etc. Please look here to learn more about those: <https://support.atlassian.com/cloud-automation/docs/automation-service-limits/>

Putting those things together, your Jira license level (Free, Standard, Premium, or Enterprise) and products installed significantly impact usage for automation.

Rather than using the Atlassian-provided template for this reminder scenario, a better approach may be to use a global rule on a scheduled trigger with conditions to only send notifications when needed. That could then send individual emails and manage automation usage to: *0 usage* when no issues are found and *1 per schedule* when issues are found.

Please also consider: the need to create a reminder email because of the number of due-date-driven items is a smell (or indication) of other challenges. Perhaps the amount of work in progress (i.e., WIP) is so high that forecasted dates are not achievable. Or the initial due dates were not realistic. Please work with your teams to discuss each missed due date as an opportunity to learn "why did we miss this date, or feel time pressure?" Learning the root causes may help the teams improve and eliminate the needs for the reminders.

Kind regards,  
Bill


Tags: cloud