Configuring Jira notification when a pull request from Github is not able to transition a Jira issue
Platform Notice: Data Center Only - This article only applies to Atlassian products on the Data Center platform.
Note that this KB was created for the Data Center version of the product. Data Center KBs for non-Data-Center-specific features may also work for Server versions of the product, however they have not been tested. Support for Server* products ended on February 15th 2024. If you are running a Server product, you can visit the Atlassian Server end of support announcement to review your migration options.
*Except Fisheye and Crucible
Overview/Problem
Jira can be configured to send a notification when a pull request is triggered in Github. The current functionality describes in Configuring workflow triggers is to auto transition status in the workflow.
For example, let say our issue is in Open status and once a Git commits/merge or pull request happens you want the issue to automatically move to In-Progress status, then the above documentation comes in handy. When a ticket moved from one status to another you can configure to send issue updated notification.
However, in the scenario where a pull request is submitted in Github but the Jira issue is in a workflow state that does not have any outgoing transitions to In-Progress, then the issue will not be transitioned. Also, no email will be sent out at this point.There is no functionality in Jira to send a notification when a pull request is open but Jira issue is not transitioned as a result of that.
ℹ️ This article is going to discuss the workaround to send a notification in this (failure) scenario.
Background
Configure the DVCS account
Set up the trigger in your Jira workflow on the status which suits your requirement.
Once the pull request is triggered the status changes from open to progress.
Notification is also triggered for updates.
When the pull request is triggered and Jira issue is not transitioned due to missing outgoing transition from the current status of issue, no notification is sent to the users.
Workaround
Currently, we do not have a built in functionality in Jira Software to achieve this. However, we can achieve this functionality through the plugin Automation for Jira.
ℹ️ NOTE : If you also have Jira Service Management 5.0 or later installed, the plugin Automation for Jira will be already preinstalled on your instance.
We need to configure an incoming webhook rule in automation for Jira, which can trigger a notification if the status is matched or unmatched with a custom notification when a pull request is triggered with respect to an issue.
Below is a sample rule that will receive a webhook from Github and then strip out the Issue Key. The rule will check the status of the issue. If the pull request is open and the status of the issue is In Progress, then the issue is transitioned to In Review. If the pull request is open and the issue status is not equal to In Progress, then an email will be sent out. If the issue is in In Review status and the Pull request is being merged, then the issue can be transitioned to Done.
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