How a rule reads
- When
- One trigger: a job is created, a job moves to a column, a job is completed, a label is added, the priority changes or the assignee changes. Or a job has sat still: a job has been in a column for a while, for between 1 and 365 days.
- From GitHub
- With a GitHub repository connected to the project, GitHub can set a rule off too: a pull request is opened, a pull request is merged, a pull request goes live, its GitHub issue is closed, its GitHub issue is reopened, changes are requested, a pull request is approved or checks fail. Each rule watches one of the project's repositories, or all of them.
- From approvals
- Where approvals are on: an approval request is approved (with changes or not), changes are requested on an approval request, or the team check passes on an approval request, optionally only for requests whose title contains some words.
- Only if
- Up to 3 conditions on the priority, the job type or the assignee. Leave them out and the rule runs every time.
- Then
- Up to 5 actions, in order: assign to, add collaborators, add the label, remove the label, move to, set the priority to, mark the job complete, notify the assignee or people you name, and archive the job, which always comes last.
A project can have up to 25 automations. They run from the top of the list down.
Tick quietly on a move and nobody is notified about it. The move still shows in the job's activity and on everyone's board.
Rules that wait on time are checked once a day, overnight. Each one acts once each time a job arrives in the column, so a job left in Done is archived once, not every day. If its conditions do not match the job yet, it checks again the next day, and a job restored from the archive waits the full time again.
Create an automation
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Step 1: Open the project, choose Project settings (the cog at the top of the board), then Automations.
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Step 2: Choose New automation, or choose Examples to start from a rule filled in from your project. Nothing is saved until you check it.
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Step 3: Give it a short Name. It shows in job activity and in notifications.
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Step 4: Build the sentence: pick what sets it off after When, choose Add a condition if you need one, and Add an action for each thing it should do.
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Step 5: Choose Create automation.
Tip: The examples are a good start. Done means completed marks a job complete when it moves to your done column. Move completed jobs sends finished work to that column quietly. Another archives it after it has sat there for two weeks. Critical alert notifies the assignee when a job turns critical.
Who can set them up
Only administrators can create, change or delete automations. Team members see the project's rules and their recent runs, read-only, so they can tell why a job changed. Guests never see them.
See what a rule did
Every change a rule makes shows in the job's activity under the rule's name, marked with a lightning bolt, and a rule's notifications carry its name too.
Choose Runs on a rule to see its Recent runs: the last 50, each marked Ran, Nothing to change, Skipped or Failed, with the reason when it did not run. The switch on each rule turns it off and on, and its menu can Edit, Move up, Move down or Delete it.
A rule's changes can set off other rules, up to three rules in a row, and the run says which rule set it off. A rule never runs twice in one chain, so two rules cannot pass a job back and forth.
When a rule turns itself off
If a column, label or job type a rule uses is deleted, or someone it names leaves the project, the rule switches itself off and says why. Edit the rule to fix it, then turn it back on.
More about this: Everything automations can do
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