Automatically set project creation date with project properties

Platform Notice: Cloud - This article applies to Atlassian products on the cloud platform.

Purpose

A project's creation date is not returned using the Jira Cloud REST API nor is it identifiable through the Jira user interface. The following feature requests have been raised to address this:

Solution

Using automations and project properties that can be configured via the REST API, the issue creation date can be added to projects. Working with project properties is described in our Atlassian Developer documentation for Project properties and it is recommended that when following this guide users familiarize themselves with it.

Instructions to create an API token

To create an Atlasisan API token to use with the automation rule, follow the instructions provided in the article Manage API tokens for your Atlassian account.

Follow the steps below to configure the automation rule:

  1. Use the Project created automation trigger with the rule (Jira Smart Values - Project created has information on possible details that can be accessed for a project)
  2. (Optional step) Adding a Log action step to record data such as the project name and key can aid reading the logs and using them to troubleshoot issues. A sample value to use:

    Project created key: {{project.key}} Project name: {{project.name}}
  3. The Send web request action will be used to communicate with the project properties REST API. The following configuration can be used to set the creation date as a project property:
    1. Web request URL should be configured using your site's domain:

      https://your-site.atlassian.net/rest/api/3/project/{{project.id}}/properties/projectCreated
    2. Headers will require your Authorization header using the REST API token generated earlier in this article. As we are interacting with a REST API using JSON, adding the header Content type: application/json is recommended
    3. Request method should be PUT as noted in the API documentation when setting a property value.
    4. For the Web request body use Custom data with the following payload:

      {
      "createdDate": "{{now.jiraDate}}"
      }
    5. Configuring the rule to wait until a response is received and to continue running the rule even if the web request was unsuccessful
  4. (Optional step) Similar to step 2., we can add logging to capture the response from the web request action that can aid troubleshooting the automation rule. Using the smart value {{webResponse.status}}  will return the request HTTP status code. Please read the following documentation for available properties that can be used: Jira Smart Values - Webhook response.

The above steps should produce an automation rule similar to the screenshot below:

In the above rule the payload used with the Send web request element can be tailored to your teams' needs by using a different key instead of createdDate or a different date format. For additional date format options refer to Jira Smart Values - date and time.

Identifying the issue created date for existing projects

The steps outlined here will add the created date for projects that are created after the automation rule is implemented. Since the created date is not displayed in the user interface or retrievable through the REST API, when looking to add this property to existing projects, retrieving the oldest issue on a project can give an estimate for the created date.

Last modified on Jan 24, 2025

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