Why you Should Automate your JIRA Epic Colour Based on Commit Status | John's Tips 2024W23
Why you Should Automate your JIRA Epic Colour Based on Commit Status | John's Tips 2024W23
This is one of my favourite hacks for JIRA, and that is simply automating the colour of your JIRA epics based on the epic commit status. See here how you can do it yourself.
I have a complicated relationship with Jira, I love the customisations and automations they offer you, but don’t love the reasons that cause you to require those customisations. Thats an argument for another day though.
Today I’m here to tell you of my all time favourite automation for Jira and that is changing the Jira Epic Colour based on the commit status (Commit/Target/Stretch etc.). Here’s an example of it in action for me on the backlog timeline view.
It is such a simple change, but it will make a huge difference on your daily life, if you spend a lot of it in Jira backlogs like myself.
You can look at this board, and if you use the start/due date fields on epics, they will be reflected in here. (if you use other date fields for tracking epics, let me know, I have an automation for that too - future tip!).
Quickly being able to see your commited epics, and ensure all tickets within that epic are assigned to a sprint is super powerful and a really useful piece to add to standups or grooming sessions.
Creating the Commit Status Field
The first change you need to make, or confirm you have already, is a single option field for Commit Status and give it the following values:
Commit (or Hard Commit)
Target (or Soft Commit)
Stretch
Unplanned
Note: This shouldn’t be a multi select, as the automation breaks. Additionally, an epic shouldn’t have two statuses, that wouldn’t make sense.
Next, we are going to automate so that the colour of those tickets (the little square colour on the epic key) is changed whenever the commit status changes.
First, I wanted to find out what colours made most sense, so I asked ChatGPT. Here was the response.
Commit: This category typically represents tasks or goals that are definite and confirmed. A strong, solid color like dark blue or green can convey this sense of reliability and commitment.
Target: Targets are goals you aim to achieve. Orange or a lighter shade of blue could be suitable. These colors are bright and forward-looking, implying ambition and focus.
Unplanned: For tasks or items that arise unexpectedly, a color that stands out from planned tasks is ideal. A bright color like purple or pink can indicate that these items are out of the ordinary and need special attention.
Stretch: Stretch goals are aspirational and beyond the standard expectations. A color like light green or teal can be used here. These colors are less intense, indicating that while these goals are important, they are not as critical as the 'Commit' or 'Target' items.
Nice! Ok, fair enough, I’m happy with those, so lets set up the automation. There are a couple of steps here, but they are all fairly short.
Setting up the Automation
Find out what the custom field number is for epic color. Simply go to your issue search, and do the following. The custom field number will be suggested. 10010 is the code for the one on our Jira.
Find out what colour code the selected colours are. This list here seems to be correct, and is what I used. Alternatively, you can just pick the colour in Jira and try and find out via JQL or something like the above, but again, someone else has done it for you, so don’t waste time unless you have to!
Set up your automation just like this, with simple advanced edit for fields, in the Additional fields box. Don’t actually select any fields in the “fields to set” section.
{
"fields": {
"customfield_10010": "ghx-label-13"
}
}
Using the above template, for each step:
Hard Commit: "customfield_10010": "ghx-label-13"
Soft Commit: "customfield_10010":"ghx-label-3"
Stretch: "customfield_10010":"ghx-label-10"
Unplanned: "customfield_10010":"ghx-label-7"
You’ll want one for each status, just like the above.
Here are the settings for each branch rule
Here is the issue fields condition
Once you configure all these, you can enable your rule.
To see everything on your backlog timeline, you’ll need to enable these settings on your board config
And that’s it! This epic colour also works in Advanced roadmaps, but you need to set the Color by setting to Epic
Let me know if you found this useful, and what else you’d like help with in Jira.
For More Tips
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