How to send a mail in JIRA if your tickets are coming closer to the due date?

In one of my projects I had the use case that I have a lot of issues with different due dates. When I start my work in the morning I want to know all issues who’s due date is reached tomorrow.   In some circumstances it is necessary to get this filtered issues regularly (for example every day). Of course, I can log into JIRA every day and check the issues that relates to this filter but in projects with an enormous number of issues this method is a very time consuming way.  Therefore I looked for a way to automate this process.  JIRA offers  the possibility to subscribe to filters. 

First of all I need to create a filter based on my specific needs.  The most flexible way is to use JIRA’s advanced search capability with JQL (JIRA Query Language).  In my case I want to find all issues relating to the project Testproject (TES) whose due date is reached tomorrow or before and where their status is not closed. The query for finding this issues looks like the code shown below. Similar to this query you can change the due date for example to due < now()  if you want to find all issues whose due date is already in the past or due < endOfWeek() to find all issues with a due date before the end of this week.

Three issues exist where the search criteria fits. After saving my search result as a filter I can go to the menu tab “Issues” and select the item “Manage filters”. Next to my own filters, I can subscribe to filters of other users (if I have the permission to see their filters).

Find Issues whose due date is tomorrow and where their status is not closed

As recipients of the subscription I can either select a personal subscription, so I will receive emails and nobody else get effected of this subscription or I can define a group, that already exist in JIRA. In this case every person belonging to this group will receive the same email at the same time. In addition to the recipients I have  to specify the time interval of the subscription.

Subscribing to a filter

I set the time interval to a daily subscription at 7.00 am .  By default, JIRA will only sent emails if there are issues that relates to my filter. In some cases I want to get the email every time regardless of whether there are issues or not. In this case I have to check the box “Email this filter, even if there are no issues found”. Next to the standard options for subscription intervals  I have the possibility to select an advanced schedule. This is done with cron expressions. To get an overview of cron syntax, check subscription documentation of Atlassian.

In future I will receive an email every day at 07.00 am. In the email I will see an overview of all issues belonging to my filter. From now on I will never miss out on anything 🙂

Email notifcation based on filter subscription

-Natalie