Who this guide is for

This guide only concerns users who are looking to upgrade from the old Atlassian Labs "Automation Lite for JIRA Server" (formerly "JIRA Automation") add-on to the new "Automation for JIRA" (either Lite or Pro) add-on provided by Code Barrel.  If you are not sure which version you are currently on, navigate to 'Manage add-ons' and see if you currently have the 3 add-ons shown in the screenshot below installed with version 2.0.3 or earlier.  This guide is only required for JIRA Server and can be ignored for Cloud users.  For a full breakdown of the differences between the different Automation for JIRA editions, please see Automation Lite vs Automation for JIRA.

Please note that:

• All your existing automation rules will be migrated in every upgrade scenario shown below.  So for example if you have some automation rules configured in "Automation Lite for JIRA Server" and install the Pro edition, then all your automation rules will be migrated across.
• You can downgrade back to the old Atlassian Labs add-on at any time simply by uninstalling the new Automation for JIRA and re-installing the Atlassian Labs version 2.0.3 (still available for download from the Atlassian marketplace) in case something goes horribly wrong.

Upgrade scenarios

Third party Automation extensions

A final scenario to consider is if you are using third party extensions to Automation for JIRA, such as the PDF Automation Plugin for JIRA by Midori or Valiantys' nFeeds add-on (see full list of extensions).  We continue to provide support for these third party extensions, however the configuration UI has changed significantly and these third party extensions will have to be updated with the new UI. We're actively working with vendors to provide new versions of their add-ons soon, but in the meantime we will render a fallback UI that should still allow you to use these extensions.  Rules already configured with actions provided by third party extensions will continue to run.

Upgrade Troubleshooting

The add-on system in JIRA is a fickle beast. We tried our best to make this upgrade as smooth as possible, but even so - sometimes depending on your exact setup things can go wrong.  The underlying cause is that there's some complex dependencies between various add-ons at play here to support third party extensions.  Upgrading such an add-on can expose bugs in the Atlassian add-on system that only surface sometimes depending on exact ordering of events in your system (which is hardware dependant). We tried our best to catch all of these, but some scenarios we couldn't work around.

Problem: After upgrade pages like "Getting started" or the "Automation rules" admin page don't load

When you try to access these, you get 'Not found' 404 errors or 500 error pages with exceptions.  Most likely this is due to one of these hard to spot bugs in the Atlassian add-on system having triggered.

Troubleshooting steps

• Uninstall the old labs add-ons "Automation module" and "JIRA Automation SPI" in the 'Manage add-on' section (but don't worry, you wont lose any data)
• Try disabling, then re-enabling Automation (Lite) for JIRA in the Manage add-on section
• If this didn't fix the problem: Try restarting JIRA

Problem: Third party actions (like "Midori's Attach PDF") no longer work with audit log errors or errors when configuring rules

When rules execute, the audit log might contain errors like "This rule component was provided by a third party add-on for Automation for JIRA. It appears this add-on is no longer installed or enabled." or the same error might be shown when trying to configure a rule. This means that during the upgrade somehow the third party add-ons providing these actions were disabled or not registered correctly.

You can find the full list of third party extensions in Automation Lite for JIRA here: Automation for JIRA third party extensions

Troubleshooting steps

• Uninstall the old labs add-ons "Automation module" and "JIRA Automation SPI" in the 'Manage add-on' section (but don't worry, you wont lose any data)
• Try disabling, then re-enabling Automation (Lite) for JIRA in the 'Manage add-on' section
• Try disabling, then re-enabling the third party extension add-ons in the 'Manage add-on' section
• If this didn't fix the problem: Try restarting JIRA

Seeing other issues after the upgrade? Please contact Code Barrel support!

Add-ons provided by the different editions in 'Manage add-ons'

If you are currently using the old Atlassian Labs provided add-on v.2.0.3 you will see these add-ons installed in your JIRA instance: 

If you upgrade to the new Lite version provided by Code Barrel (see the first 'Upgrade Scenario' above), you will have these add-ons installed: 

The old "Automation Module" and "JIRA Automation SPI" add-ons can safely be uninstalled at some point in future. This will reduce memory footprint and startup times of your JIRA instance.

If you upgrade to the Pro version at some stage in future from our Lite version, then you should see the following add-ons listed: