What are actions?
When a rule is triggered, what it does is determined by actions defined inside of the rule. ARN currently supports following types of actions.
When you add actions within a rule, these actions are executed in the sequence of the order you have organized them. For eg. There is rule with actions like Email, Confluence, LinkedIn announcements, and publish-to-release notes. Based on their order rules are executed. You can reorder them by simple drag and drop and set the sequence.
Send email
This action lets you select an email template along with the list of users that are supposed to receive the mail.
Users can be added in the form of
Jira users
Project roles
Jira groups
Issue users
Email addresses
Integration (This will allow you to send emails to users from Salesforce)
Reply to & Email from parameters are used in the final email sent to the recipients. If Send email as Bcc is checked, it will add all the user email addresses in Bcc so that they are not transparent.
For cloud version of the app, it is possible to configure the email address from which ARN emails are generated.
Once you are done Setting up SMTP (to send emails via your company domain), that specific email address can be chosen from the email action - using the ‘Send via email’ selector.
Attachments
Send email with PDF attachment
Release notes in PDF format can be attached to an email. Within the send email action (same as above), there is a pdf template selector. Rest of the action parameters remain same as those of email. At the time of rule execution, a pdf is generated using the selected template & sent as an attachment to the release mail. This release mail is generated using the template set in Email template dropdown.
Here is how to save the PDF release notes directly to a cloud storage platform such as Google drive, Box, Dropbox etc - Other integrations
Send email with markdown attachment
Release notes in markdown format can be attached to an email. Within the action send email (same as above), there is a markdown template selector. Rest of the action parameters remain same as that of email. At the time of rule execution, markdown is generated using the selected template & sent as an attachment to the release mail. This release mail is generated using the template set in Email template dropdown.
Send email with JSON attachment
Currently release notes in JSON format can be attached to an email. Within the action send email (same as above), there is a JSON template selector. Rest of the action parameters remain same as those of email. At the time of rule execution, JSON is generated using the selected template & sent as an attachment to the release mail. This release mail is generated using the template set in Email template dropdown.
Send email with HTML attachment
Currently release notes in HTML format can be attached to an email. Within the action send email (same as above), there is an HTML template selector. Rest of the action parameters remain same as those of email. At the time of rule execution, HTML is generated using the selected template & sent as an attachment to the release mail. This release mail is generated using the template set in Email template dropdown.
Send email with Word attachment
Currently release notes in Word format can be attached to an email (This feature is in Beta). Within the action send email (same as above), there is an Word template selector. Rest of the action parameters remain same as those of email. At the time of rule execution, Word doc is generated using the selected template & sent as an attachment to the release mail. This release mail is generated using the template set in Email template dropdown.
Send email with PowerPoint attachment
Using MS PowerPoint template one can generate an email with a PowerPoint presentation containing release notes. Within email action, there is a MS PowerPoint template sector. Select relevant template and rest of the details in action remains same. At the time of rule execution, PopwerPoint presentation is generated using the selected template & sent as an attachment to the release mail. This release mail is generated using the template set in the Email template dropdown.
Publish to Confluence
Publish to Confluence action takes Confluence template as an input parameter along with the space key & parent page id. While space key is mandatory, parent page ID is not. If the parent page id is not provided, the release note page will be created without a parent in Confluence.
Do keep in mind that if space key is not valid or if the parent page id is not valid, relevant errors will be shown in the logs & the action will fail.
There are a few possibilities based on the action configured -
Create new Confluence page/blog
ARN will try to create a new Confluence page/blog & the action will fail if the page with same title already exists.
Update an existing Confluence page/blog
ARN will check if a page/blog with the given title (based on Confluence template in that action) already exists
doesn’t exist - new Confluence page/blog will be created
does exist - existing Confluence page/blog will be updated
Append to existing page/blog
ARN will append release notes content to an existing page/blog. ‘Dynamic section end’ text will be used to identify string before which content will be added. If it is left empty, then content is added to the bottom of the page
Prepend to existing page/blog
ARN will prepend release notes content to an existing page/blog. ‘Dynamic section start’ will be used to identify string after which content will be added. If it is left empty, then content is added to the start of the page
Parent page id
ARN will create a new child page under the page as per the parent page id
Labels
Multiple labels can be associated with Confluence action. These labels will be used while creating/updating the page/blog in Confluence. Do note that space is not allowed within these labels.
Skip subsequent actions if this action fails
This option prevents subsequent actions from running if the current (parent) action fails.
Read this article to know how Confluence credentials are set up - Setting up Confluence
Use page created/updated in the previous action as a parent page
It's possible to create both parent and child Confluence pages using the same ARN rule. What you have to do is, under a single ARN rule, add two Confluence actions. The first action will create a new Confluence page. The second Confluence action will create a child page under the page created through the first Confluence action.
It is also possible to create a Confluence page through a Confluence rule action and then append/prepend this page through a subsequent Confluence action within the same ARN rule.
For both the above use cases, simply choose the previous Confluence action under the parent page setting, and you're done.
Publish to Confluence (with new editor)
This is another approach we have implemented to support the new Confluence editor. Read Publish to confluence (with new confluence editor) for all the steps along with this Rule action details.
Create an entry in the Release page or Widget
Release page & widget actions are now available within ARN rules. Simply provide a name for the action & choose a corresponding release page/widget. That's it. Now every time this action is executed, a new entry (we call that a 'release') is created for that release page/widget. Content of this 'release' is dependent on the JQL you've configured for the release page/widget. More about that here.
POST to external endpoint pre-defined URL (HTML, JSON, Markdown, Slack)
HTML, JSON, Markdown, PDF, MS PowerPoint
In order to directly publish the release notes on a different platform or to further process them, ARN supports the possibility of POSTing the JSON, HTML, Markdown, PDF, or MS PowerPoint to a pre-defined URL. Depending on whether the endpoint requires authentication or not, you can enter username & password.
You can preview the POST request payload using any online service such as https://webhook.site/
Slack
Using Slack app
A dedicated Slack integration app is available for ARN Cloud - Free & Paid. Setting up this Slack integration is detailed here - Setting up Slack integration.
A dedicated ‘Send to Slack’ action is available under the rules. Fill out all the necessary information. If you have connected the Slack workspace then you should be able to choose a channel from the dropdown.
Using POST action
Once you have created Slack template, you can automate the release notes in Slack conversations/channels via a post action action in ARN. As shown in the below image, add the Action name as needed. Select Slack as Template type. Select the relevant ARN Slack template. Now add the Endpoint.
Read this Slack document to understand steps for creating the Endpoint.
Once the endpoint is added, click on Save. The authorization step is not mandatory. After saving this, release notes should get published based on the trigger set in the Rule.
If you face any errors, please read Troubleshooting issues in POSTing Slack messages.
Jira service desk announcement creation
An announcement can be added to a specific project in the Jira service desk. This announcement can be published from within the ARN action - JSD announcement. Expected parameters for this action include portal id along with the announcement template.
Here’s an article on Setting up Jira Service Management
Generate release notes with AI
This action allows you to use AI to generate release notes. As shown in the below image you can select the Action and Tone of the content, more details of all the relevant fields as below -
Action - You can decide whether you want to Summarize or Rephrase the content
Tone - It can be Professional, Casual, Humurouse
Maximum words - It can be 100 words max
Input Jira issue field - Select the input field
Output Jira issue field - Select the Output field
JQL - Define the JQL to fetch relevant issues
Skip subsequent actions if this action fails - If set to True, the subsequent actions will fail if this action fails for some reason
Click on Save.
Publish to social media
This action allows to post release notes announcements on social media platforms. At the moment, only the LinkedIn platform is enabled. read LinkedIn announcement template.
Action name - Edit the action name for internal action identification
Template type - Currently only LinkedIn announcement template is available for social media platforms so that is selected by default. We plan to add more such social media platform templates shortly.
Select template - Select one of LinkedIn announcement templates from the dropdown
LinkedIn connection - Here, the LinkedIn connection name is selected by default as per the selection of connections in LinkedIn integration setup. The same will be applicable for all social media rule actions across all projects on that instance.
Posting as - This option will show by default selection based on the LinkedIn integration settings.
Attachements - You can post PDF, MS word, or PowerPoint presentation files in the Linkedin announcements using this option.
Select the attachement type and select a relevant template for the same.
As shown in the above image, assume there is a Rule set to publish ARN release notes. In this rule, there are two actions. 1 - Release page, 2- social media. Upon the rule execution, the first action will be executed that publishes the release notes to a release page. Then second action will be executed to make a LinkedIn announcement of the same release version. This action will pick the Release page URL and replace it with the [releasepageURL] variable added in the main content of LinkedIn announcement template.
Same logic is applied when [ConfluenceURL] variable if it is used in the main content of template is executed with the Publish to Confluence action (old/new). The Confluence page URL will be replaced in the LinkedIn announcement.
If there are not actions for Confluence/realease page and there are URL varaialbles used in template thenno value will be replaced. Thus make sure you are adding the relevant action in the rule.
Read current Limitations with LinkedIn announcement.
If you do not see this Rule action please check Access & Permissions.
Send to MS teams
Documentation is in progress 🛠️
Sort/Reorder actions
When a rule is created, multiple rule actions can be added to the rule. These rule actions are executed one after another. In some cases, the rules depend on previous rules being executed successfully. This requires the user to create the rule actions in a sequence. That is why no matter in what order rule actions are created, one can reorder them as needed and save the rule.
