Deprecation of Epic Link, Parent and Parent Link Field Directives for inbound Issue creation and outbound notifications

Some small changes to JEMH Cloud are happening as a result of recent deprecation announcements by Atlassian. As of 30th November 2022, it will no longer be possible to set Epic Link or Parent Link fields through directives.

Please Note: This is only impacting how the Epic issue is set for Issue creation. The functionality to set a Parent Issue will still exist in JEMHC, and can be done so by using the parentIssueKey directive field.

Additionally, after 30th November 2022 outbound notifications sent that use the Epic Link changelog (For example, update notifications when the parent issue association changes), Epic Link, Parent, and Parent Link will now appear with the replacement IssueParentAssociation value.

Am I affected?

You'll be affected if you meet any of the below conditions:

You are setting the Epic Link or Parent Link Custom Fields via email using directives (located in JEMHC > Profiles > Project Mappings > Pre Processing or JEMHC > Profiles > Project Mappings > Rules > Pre Processing). Please read What do I need to do? to ensure your configuration still works after the deprecation period ends.
You’re using custom notification templates that specifically refer to Epic Link, Parent, or Parent Link fields. You'll need to rely on using IssueParentAssociation after 30th November 2022.

If you're already using the new Parent Jira Field you are not affected.

What do I need to do?

If you're using the Regexp Field processor, we'll be making some automatic changes to set the Field to use the correct Parent Jira Field over the following weeks. These changes won't affect the field processor configuration, and are simply to prevent current configurations from breaking after the deprecation period ends. The changes also mean the Epic Link and Parent Link fields will no longer be selectable.

These automatic changes only applies to the Regexp Field Processor. If you want to make these changes manually, they're explained in the table below.

Other Field Processors using directives will need manual changes listed below.

Using Field Processor Directives

The table below shows example usages of directives that have been deprecated, and examples of the new directive that replaces it.

Directive type	Deprecated directive example	New directive example

Directive type	Deprecated directive example	New directive example
At(@) Prefix	Using `@Epic Link=ISSUE-123` or `@Parent Link=ISSUE-123` in Email body.	Use `@parentIssueKey=ISSUE-123`
Colon Suffix	Using `Epic Link:ISSUE-123` or `Parent Link:ISSUE-123` in Email body.	Use `parentIssueKey:ISSUE-123`
Subject	Using `#Epic Link="ISSUE-123"` or `#Parent Link="ISSUE-123"`in Email subject	Use `#parentIssueKey="ISSUE-123"`
X-JEMH Header	Adding the `X-JEMH-epicLink` or `X-JEMH-parentLink` Header	Add the `X-JEMH-parentIssueKey` Header
Nagios	Using `Epic Link:ISSUE-123` or `Parent Link:ISSUE-123`	Use `parentIssueKey:ISSUE-123`
Regexp	Setting the ‘Field’ value to use `Epic Link` or `Parent Link` Custom Field.	Set the ‘Field’ value to use the `Parent` Jira Field. (You shouldn't need to change the regexp config, just the field the directive is supplying).