Advanced automation steps

Advanced steps help you manage work that has multiple paths, timing, or repetitions in a single flow. By adding advanced steps to your automation flow, you can:

• Eliminate manual workarounds: Manage multi-step, multi-team processes in one flow, instead of relying on multiple flows that depend on each other.

• Boost efficiency: Automate parallel and conditional work to reduce errors and save your team's time.

• Enterprise-grade advanced control: Get clear visibility and easily scale automation across your organization.

Branch at the same time

This step allows multiple flow groups to run simultaneously. Use it when you need to run several tasks in parallel that don’t depend on each other.

Other branches available in Jira and Confluence Cloud

In the following example, when a work item is created, the flow adds a comment to the ticket and sends an email notification simultaneously.

Branch with conditions

Use smart values here: Yes

This step allows you to split your flow into different paths based on conditions that you set. Each path represents one scenario that can happen when the flow runs. Use this step when a single trigger must lead to different outcomes based on its context.

When the flow runs, each branch will be examined in the order you set them up. As soon as it finds a branch where all conditions are true, it runs the actions in that branch.

Note: Although more than one branch’s conditions can be true for the same flow run, Branch with conditions always runs only the first matching branch. It is recommended to order your branches so the preferred scenario appears first.

A Branch with conditions step includes:

• Up to three branches, where each branch has:

  • A name

  • One or more conditions

  • The actions to run when those conditions are true

• You can also add an optional Fallback branch that runs if no other branch matches your conditions.

In the following example, the flow uses a Branch with conditions step to take any three paths when a work item is created, based on the work item’s priority: Highest, High, or a Fallback path when neither condition is met.

Delay until

• Use smart values here: No

This step lets you delay when the branch runs its steps. You can either pause the branch for a set amount of time or wait for a specific event before the branch continues. Each delay can be between 10 seconds and 90 days.

You must add this step before a condition or action. It only delays the branch’s steps and does not affect the rest of the flow.

• When “Delay until” is before an action, the flow pauses until the delay ends.

• When “Delay until” is before a condition, the flow pauses for the delay, then evaluates the condition.

Supported events:

• Work item updated

• Alert updated

• Incoming webhook More on how to verify incoming webhook trigger

In the following example, when a work item is created, the flow waits nine minutes before adding a comment to the ticket.

Loop

• Use smart values here: Yes

This step lets you run the same group of actions several times in a row. Each time the flow runs, the loop checks the conditions again and only repeats its actions up to three times if the conditions are still true. Use this step when you need to repeat the same action under specific conditions, rather than creating multiple separate flows.

You can add up to 32 conditions that control whether the loop continues or stops. At the start of every loop iteration, automation checks these conditions. If the conditions aren’t met, the loop ends. Loop conditions only evaluate information from the trigger and don’t support conditions based on state variables (values that are stored and updated while the flow runs).

Select Run steps once before first loop to run the steps inside the loop one time before automation checks any loop conditions for the first iteration.

Loop inputs

Loop inputs let you define values that the loop can read and use in its conditions.

An input consists of:

• A variable name

• A value

You can set the value of a loop input using:

• Smart values from the trigger context

• Output references produced by flow groups, as long as those flow groups are executed before the loop or inside the loop

Loop conditions can only use data from the trigger context and the loop inputs you’ve defined. They don’t evaluate flow group outputs directly unless those outputs are passed into the loop as input variables.

Loop variables

The loop exposes two state variables you can reference in other steps:

• loop.count - Number of iterations executed by the loop step.

• loop.conditionMet - Whether the loop’s conditions evaluated to true. Returns true or false as a string.

These values are stored in the loop’s internal state and are updated only when the loop completes execution. 

To use these variables in subsequent steps, add them as inputs to the step or group where they are needed.

Nesting

Nesting allows you to put one advanced step within another in a flow. Loops can’t be nested within themselves. However, you can combine it with Branch at the same time and Delay until steps.

Each flow can have a maximum of two nesting levels. Both Loop and Branch at the same time count toward these nesting levels. This means you can have:

• A Branch at the same time inside a Loop (with or without Delay until)

• A Loop inside a Branch at the same time (with or without Delay until)

• A Branch at the same time inside another Branch at the same time (with or without Delay until)

In the following example, when a work item is created, the flow uses a Loop step to add the same comment up to three times. Before the loop repeats, the loop checks whether the work item’s Status is still “Blocked.” As soon as the status changes, the loop stops, and no more comments are added.