Jira Cloud Automation - Schedule delete issue attachments (2023)

Introduction

Don't delete your issues in Jira just to save storage space. Delete attachments instead if you really have to.

#Automation #ScheduledRule #DeleteAttachments

Smart values: support.atlassian.com/jira-software-cloud/docs/what-are-smart-values/

####

Jira books and Video courses (Available to buy)

1. Jira Quick Start Guide (Book): go.ravi.pro/JiraQuickStartGuide
2. Mastering Jira (Book): go.ravi.pro/masteringjira
3. Jira 7 Guide for Administrators and Developers (Video course): go.ravi.pro/JiraGuideAdmin
4. Jira 7 Essentials (Video course): go.ravi.pro/JiraEssentials

Free Video courses

1. GetAnswers: go.ravi.pro/GetAnswers
2. Portfolio for Jira: go.ravi.pro/portfolio
3. Structure for Jira: go.ravi.pro/StructureJira
4. ScriptRunner for Jira: go.ravi.pro/ScriptRunnerJira
5. Google Apps Script tutorials: go.ravi.pro/GoogleAppsScript
6. JiraTips: go.ravi.pro/JiraTips

Social

1. Blog: www.ravisagar.in
2. Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/ravisagar/
3. Twitter: www.twitter.com/ravisagar
4. Instagram: www.instagram.com/ravisagar.in
5. Spotify Podcast: go.ravi.pro/spotify
6. Apple Podcast: go.ravi.pro/apple
7. Youtube: youtube.com/ravisagar1

####

Video

Hello everyone so today I received this question on the community from aaron, and erin is asking, how can I auto delete issues after six months? And this question is actually very interesting.

And by the way I have covered this in one of my video, but uh, I wanted to to talk about it one more time today, because people want to delete issues, uh for some reason, because maybe they need more, maybe they don't have space on their server.

And this particular question, if you if you read the question, this question says that we received a lot of lot of tickets in their jira in their jira service management project, where people are also sending attachments.

And when of course, you have a lot of attachments on the issue, it will contribute towards the total space.

And what aaron is trying to do here is to try to delete the issues if they are if they're old now first of all.

So there are a couple of things that I want to talk about first of all, I think, uh, try to control the attachments that are coming, uh to your mailbox.

If you can, maybe I think that is probably one place where you can definitely look at if you have attachments that are really huge, or maybe maybe maybe do something about those emails.

But let us say you have those attachments, converted as jira tickets in your jira service management project.

Then instead of deleting, an issue, although deleting an issue is possible.

You can write an automation rule to do this.

But instead of deleting, the issue, you can actually delete the attachments.

So let me show you.

Let me show you one rule, which I showed in one of my video, um, I think a few months back or maybe last year, I'm, not really sure when so yeah, it was actually on 12th of january.

So I I did talk about this, and I created one rule, and I can show you the rule.

I I should have the rule with me.

So let me open the rule.

And if you look at the rule here that says delete attachments now by the way you can, I mean, first of all, what we are doing here is we are trying to delete the issues based on, uh, nothing.

But one transition if there is a transition then delete it delete the attachment, but which is probably not a good way, but I want to of course, trigger it manually, but you can also create a rule.

Let us say let us say scheduled delete attachments.

So if you okay, come on, this is not really the name of the rule.

But okay, let us select schedule here and I'll probably move my face on the left hand side.

So let us run this rule every one week and run a jql search and execute actions on each issues in the query.

So let us do that.

So maybe you can uh use here, some kind of uh, some kind of a query jql query based on the creation date, maybe for something like that, for example, if you look here, or maybe we can write one while we are doing it.

Let us let us write our jql query.

So if we go to issues let us do it one more time.

Okay, so what I want to do, let us say I want to delete the issues based on some date field.

Let us say their resolution.

Date may be switched to basic when you're working with date fields.

It is always, you know, just can we just use the basic search.

It is convenient.

So within the last or maybe more than more than more than 30 days ago.

So if you if you run this, so basically all the issues that were resolved, uh, more than 30 days ago.

You can actually take a look at this jql go to your rule.

And if you validate the query, you will find some issues.

I guess with 38 issues.

And if you open, maybe one of those maybe couple of those issues.

I just want to see if there are some attachments or not, because I want to delete those attachments, because I want to show you if it works.

So right now there are no attachments, but maybe we can upload let us see if we can upload the attachments.

So I'll try to find a way to upload, maybe maybe not on this one can't.

I just upload upload attachments on resolved issues.

Let me just try to do it on a different one.

I may have by the way some kind of some kind of a workflow transition property.

So let us try to upload any file here.

Ah, come on I'm, a bit confused how to do it.

So let me just let me just, you know, change it to in progress and try to find a way to upload a file.

Ah, come on.

I can see this big, huge button called done, which is, uh, definitely one option.

I mean, I'm not familiar with the I'm, not massively familiar with the cloud interface because I'm more used to working on server.

But yeah, there is a button.

And I now see it? Okay, so let us let us attach a couple of files.

And what I will do, I will make sure that when I run this, maybe I will go back to some of those other issues.

So maybe this one, let us upload couple of files here as well.

Maybe this one as well.

So basically we have couple of issues with some attachments, and what I want to do.

Now I want to make sure that when this rule is executed, we want to delete the attachment.

So we can also delete the issue, which you should not do, because if you delete the attachments and those issues are gone, and I want to delete all the attachments so save it.

And I want to basically should do delete attachments, turn it on.

And and what I want to do now is, I want to I want to run this.

So how do we run this come on? So maybe maybe maybe maybe this rule is still not running, because this rule will be supposed to run every week every tuesday.

So let us do one thing.

Let us do minutes, and what I will do now I will save this now because it should run.

Maybe now in just one minute, oh, come on.

Okay, we have to specify interval, which should be more than five minutes.

Okay, let us do five minutes.

And while we wait for the rule to execute, maybe I will talk about something because we have to wait for five minutes, which is not really a long time, but we have to wait.

So let me open the audit log and uh, keep on refreshing this.

So what will happen when this rule will run? It will uh go through each and every issue that will match this.

I mean, of course, first of all this rule will run.

And when this rule runs, if you have some some jql defined here, it will do something for those issues.

It says here on top execute, this rule on the provided schedule you can choose if you if you if you would like to perform actions on a set of issues gathered with a jq search or simply execute the rule, I definitely want to do it on a set of issues.

And and and that is what this rule will do.

So this rule is supposed to run on 5 28, which is roughly few minutes from now.

So let us wait for it to finish.

And if you go back to the, if you go back to the question, let me just look at the reply.

So this is what this is what I also recommended to aaron that please try not to delete an issue.

And the good thing about g, dive is that you have change history.

You have history of all the things that you have been doing in this video of jira cloud automation I showed how to delete an issue and it worked.

But when you look at the actual issue, you will see that these issues are removed, and maybe you can, I mean, I mean to be honest, I'm also, not in a favor to delete the attachments as well, because first of all try to control the the email where you have big attachments.

And when you have those attachments in jeera, you also you can delete the attachments, but when you delete the attachments again, you will lose those attachments, uh.

So just think about something else, maybe maybe write a script to download those attachments using a rest api, maybe that might work.

And then again, use the rest api to delete the attachments.

I think that will be my preference.

I have covered this by the way.

So let us take a look at the video that I made talking about working with attachments using a rest api.

So let us do that.

Yes, I think recently I made this video, delete, 700 attachments and uh, you can by the way.

So you can get all these shoes attachments, and you can also upload an attachment.

So there are so many things that you can do with rest api, and let us go back to the rule and still not still waiting for the rule to run.

It says, next one 5 28.

And what time is it right now, it is not 5 28 by the way.

Okay, I think couple of minutes from now.

So let me just open the rule again.

Okay.

So what will happen when this rule will run? It? Will it should delete the attachments that we just uploaded these two files in these two issues, and it should work.

I mean, I'm just trying to make sure whenever whenever I do something I have this habit whenever I do something like scripting, or maybe any work that I do, I prefer validating it because you should you should try to validate your work, always a good thing to do in my opinion.

Okay.

I guess one more minute before this rule can run.

And this is what I do normally.

I mean in the evening, I open atlassian community.

And I start looking for questions.

I try to spend few minutes every day.

I I mean, I don't really really spend like a lot of time, but you know few minutes once in a while, uh during the day, if I can especially during the evening period, I spend like 15 minutes, I open community and look at the questions and try to answer.

And when I do that, of course, I get ideas to make more videos for you guys still not run.

I don't see any any message here that says, uh that it that the rule ran.

But let me just look at the issue at the issue.

Okay, the attachments are still there on the ticket, but I don't see the rule, oh, come on.

I think, uh, I'm so stupid, I I can actually click on the button on top.

So let us do that and uh, let us see.

Okay.

So it says in progress, the interface is now different.

I am so sorry, I should have clicked on the button on before, but I missed it.

I think I'm, not really in in my best mode, but let us wait for it to do something and uh, it is still in progress by the way.

And the rule is supposed to delete the attachments.

And if you don't have attachments, I think it will move on.

So I think the rule worked at least on this issue.

You can take a look at the history of the issue.

And it says, it will tell you that, you know, the screenshot is now deleted, and it was done by automation for jira.

So let us do the same thing for the other issue, and this will be, of course, the issue will be, of course, without any attachment.

Now.

So this is how you will be able to delete your attachments if you need to, and that is it.

That is all I wanted to talk about in this video.

I hope you enjoyed watching this video, and you learned something new today.

Thank you very much.

Bye.