Macros for Jira

Inspiration

Have you ever got inspired by doing boring and undemanding tasks? Do you enjoy repeating the same action sequences over and over again? Ever looking forward doing some elementary and uncreative work? Well, neither do we. Still, repetitive tasks are part of our job - developers, testers, technical writers, and most of all - support teams - follow procedures that consist of multiple steps to perform in a defined order: “assign yourself to an issue, edit field X, add a comment, link issue Y and transition issue to status Z”. Those action sequences are usually difficult to automate cause there is no universal rule to define when to trigger them, not to mention engaging your Jira Administrator in configuring this one for you! We wanted to do something about it and give the power of automation to standard Jira users. All in a secure, code and configuration-free way. That’s how our app - Macros for Jira was born.

What it does

Macros for Jira allows users without admin permissions to:

Record actions they perform on issue
Preview, edit, and save the whole action sequence to a customized macro library
Play the sequence later on a different issue in a different project
Share the saved macros with other Jira users

All of this can be done directly from the application panel on the Issue View. No configuration is required. Macros for Jira checks the change log for changes performed by the actual user within a single issue meaning that there is no risk of unauthorized or bulk actions. The whole action sequence is saved and can be reused later - all the steps are independent meaning that failure to execute a single action doesn’t block the next ones.

Supported action types:

setting and updating numerous system and custom fields as user pickers, date fields, text fields, selects, components, epic link, etc.
comment on issue
transition issue

How we built it

It all started with an idea and a team eager to take on the challenge! The next thing we know was the language we gonna use…

Challenges we ran into

Forge was (and happily is no more) new technology for us so learning how to use it was quite demanding but still a pleasant challenge. It took us a moment to get to know its possibilities and limitations…

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We managed to build a smart, smoothly working app in just a couple of weeks, without compromises on user-friendliness. The plans we had at the beginning were basic but and the end we accomplished more than initially thought!

What we learned

We learned that engaged and hard-working team can achieve anything when working together! We also got familiar with Forge and discovered the new possibilities it opens up for Atlassian Developers.

What's next for Macros for Jira

A lot has been accomplished but there is still a handful to do. In the future we plan to add support for:

creating issue links
attachments
logging time
further customization of the macro library: marking macros as favourites, reordering macro list, and possibility to edit existing macros by adding extra steps to an existing sequence
restricting Macro users to particular Jira groups/ project roles
more complex management over macros shared with other users
compatibility with other Marketplace applications - Issue Templates for Jira, Dynamic Forms for Jira, Canned Responses, etc.