Behaviours

What are Behaviours?

Behaviours give you added control over fields in Jira. A field configuration customizes how fields behave across an instance. However, a behaviour in ScriptRunner for Jira Cloud allows you to take that field customization further, defining how fields behave for issues in a given project or issue context.

Behaviours provide options enabling you to customize how fields in Jira behave. Therefore, you can give your users clear direction when filling in fields on the Create Behaviour screen. For example, you may want to create a behaviour that hides a field for a specific user group until it's relevant for them to interact with that particular field. 

You can create a behaviour that will:

• Prefill/preformat a template when an issue is created so users can easily follow it.

• Change the name or description that is displayed for a field.

• Hide or show a supported field only to people in a specific role.
  

  Note that hidden fields can still be submitted if a user edits the HTML form or modifies browser requests. 
• Set a field value based on another supported field.

How to use Behaviours

Behaviours in ScriptRunner for Jira Cloud can be used to reinforce your business processes. It's beneficial to think of a behaviour as one of your business rules or use cases and understand that it will only affect fields on projects and issue types specified by you.

Within the behaviours feature, you can choose to change or alter one or more fields. These are known as affected fields and are essential to initiate a behaviour. As such, they must be defined from the outset and are mandatory. Additionally, it is essential to determine the timing of when the script on the affected field should run: when the create screen first loads or when a change has been made to another supported field.

Install the app

Why?

There are currently two platforms on which Jira apps can be built: Atlassian Connect and the newer Atlassian Forge. ScriptRunner for Jira Cloud is built on the Connect platform, but this does not facilitate the Behaviours feature. Atlassian created an API called UI Modifications on the Forge platform, which made it possible for ScriptRunner to build behaviours. Therefore, this means that in order to use the Behaviours feature, a separate Forge app needs to be installed alongside ScriptRunner for Jira Cloud. 

As more capabilities become available in the UI Modifications API, more functionality can be built in ScriptRunner's Behaviours feature. 

How?

To install the ScriptRunner Behaviours app, you need to follow the steps below, depending on whether or not you already have an active, valid ScriptRunner for Jira Cloud instance installed: 

Before you start

Behaviours Supported Functions

Developing Behaviours on Cloud and adding more functionality to this feature remains a high priority for the ScriptRunner team. The table below highlights the functions that are currently supported in Behaviours for Cloud. Comparatively, all of the functions are available in the ScriptRunner for Jira Server/Data Centre Behaviours feature.

Category		Supported capability	Supported on Cloud
Behaviours actions		Hide/show field
		Make field editable/read-only
		Change field name/title
		Change field description
		Make field required
		Check field type
		Manage field options	Issue view: checkbox custom fields multiple select custom fields single select custom fields Create view: checkbox custom fields issue type multiple select custom fields priority radio buttons custom fields single select custom fields
Configuration mapping		Configuration support for ALL projects or ALL issue types
Behaviours location		On Create view
		On Transition view
		On Issue View Global Issue View Backlog View Board View
		Sub-tasks

Behaviours Supported Fields

Behaviours can be applied to supported fields on the Global Issue Create view and have recently expanded to include the additional Issue View.

Modifications may only be made on the following supported fields depending on the view you have selected:

Create View Supported Fields

Fields/Methods	setName getName	setDescription getDescription	setVisible isVisible	setValue getValue	setReadOnly isReadOnly	setRequired isRequired	setOptionsVisibility getOptionsVisibility
assignee
checkboxes
components
date picker
description
fix versions
issue type
labels
multiple select
multiple user picker
paragraph
people
priority
radio buttons
reporter
single select
summary
text field
url
user picker

Issue View Supported Fields

Field / methods	setName getName	setDescription getDescription	setVisible isVisible	setValue getValue	setReadOnly isReadOnly	setRequired isRequired	setOptionsVisibility getOptionsVisibility
assignee
checkboxes
description
multiple select
paragraph
priority
radio buttons
single select
summary
text field
url

Supported System Fields

Field	Supported on Cloud
Description
Priority
Summary
Assignee
Labels
Reporter
Fix Versions
Components
Other system fields

Supported Custom Fields

Supported Platforms

Platform	Supported Capability	Supported on Cloud
Jira Software	Company-managed projects
	Team-managed projects
Jira Work Management (Core)	Company-managed projects
	Team-managed projects
Jira Service Management

Behaviour Scripts

Some points worth noting about behaviour scripts: 

• The language used when writing the logic for behaviour scripts is Javascript and not Groovy.
• ScriptRunner can store up to 50,000 characters in scripts associated with a Behaviour. This includes the sum of all characters in all scripts in a single behaviour after compiling from TypeScript to JavaScript, plus our metadata. For more information, see data the POST request in Atlassian's documentation.
• Complex scripts may affect the speed at which your behaviours run and may be slower than simple or efficient scripts.
• There is a limit of 3000 behaviours at this time. 

Create a Behaviour

1. Navigate to ScriptRunner → Behaviours.
   If you have previously created behaviours, you will see a list displayed. You can edit or delete any of these via the Actions ellipsis next to the behaviour you want to modify or delete.
   

2. Click the Create Behaviour button. The following screen displays:
   
   

3. Enter a name in the Behaviour Name field.
4. Enter a brief summary of the behaviour's purpose in the Behaviour Description box.
5. Check the Enable Behaviour option, as required. By default, the behaviour is set to Enabled, meaning that the behaviour is active as soon as it has been saved.
6. Select the project(s) to which the behaviour will be applied from the Projects drop down list. You must select at least one project.
   
7. Select the type of issue you want to apply this behaviour to from the Issue Types drop down list. You must select at least one issue type.
   

8. Click the Add Script button. You will see the Add Field Script pop-up window displayed where you can add the behaviour script.
   
   

9. Determine when the behaviour script will run by choosing either On Change or On Load (or both) from the Run the script options.

   When	Runs
   On load	The script will run when the create screen initially loads. You'll want to choose this option when you want the affected field to populate immediately upon opening the create screen.  For example, a field name or field description is changed, or a value is pre-populated into the field.
   On change	The script will run when the specified supported field change happens. You may want to run the script initially when it loads AND if a change has occurred. You'll want to choose this option when you've added a condition to the logic and identified a trigger that will update the affected field. So, if you want to run the script after the user alters a field on the create screen, you should choose the On change option. For example, initially, you could set the assignee field to Bob, so all new bugs are assigned to him, but if the user changes the priority to High, the assignee would auto-update to Jane.

10. Choose to run the script on either the Create View or Issue View (or both) from the and on the options. Refer to the Supported Fields/Methods, as not all field types are supported for issue view.
11. Enter your code within the script box, as required. Note that you can directly open the API documentation from here. 
    Alternatively, you can select an example script from the Example Scripts option and modify the code as required, ensuring that you:
    • edit any variables, like custom field names, roles, or groups, in the example code so it's relevant to your instance.
    • choose the right time to run your script on: load and/or change so that it runs when needed.
    You can scroll or search for scripts by name in the Example Scripts and use the Copy Code button for scripts you'd like to paste into the Script box. 
12. Click Save Script to save your behaviour script, or you can Cancel. Once saved, you will see the details displayed within the Behaviours Scripts table:
    
    You can use the Action ellipsis menu to Edit or Delete the script. If you want to continue adding more behaviour scripts, these must be defined separately, as outlined in the steps above. You can continue to add these to the table and add the logic needed until your business requirements are met for this behaviour.
13. Click Save to confirm the configurations for your behaviour, or you can Cancel.
    

Edit a Behaviour

Follow the steps below to edit a behaviour in ScriptRunner for Jira Cloud:

1. Navigate to ScriptRunner → Behaviours. You will see a list of previously created behaviours.
2. Click Edit from the Actions ellipsis next to the behaviour you would like to modify. From here, you can also Delete a behaviour.
   
   You can open any links in the table to display a pop-up window that provides you with more information and an edit option.
3. Edit the fields, as required, from within the Edit Behaviour screen.
   
   You can also delete each of the individual Behaviour Scripts via the Actions ellipsis
4. Click Edit next to the Affected Field you want to edit, and you will see the Edit Field Script window displayed:
   
   
5. Make your required changes, such as modifying when the script runs and the type of view used and/or editing the script code.
6. Click Save to confirm the configurations for your behaviour, or you can Cancel.

Troubleshoot Behaviours

Behaviours are built on the UI Modifications API provided by Atlassian. Described below are some of the common errors that can occur as a result of using that API for the Behaviours feature.

Example Error

A common error that can occur within the ScriptRunner for Jira Cloud Behaviours feature happens when you set the wrong value type. That is, if you have a script that uses the setValue() method and the value of the field is set using the wrong data type, then you will see an error message displayed.

In this instance, you will see the error message appear on the Create issue screen when a behaviours script fails to run, as shown below:

Effect:

The result of this type of error means that all changes made in the UI do not take effect, and in turn, any behaviours that have been configured on other fields also do not run.

Resolution:

To resolve this error, you need to review the behaviours scripts mapped to the affected issue type and ensure that you set the correct value for the field being set. The value types associated with each field are described on the Behaviours API page.