Number of times that a custom field has been changed

Configuration

Create a Custom smart number field and use the Jira expression parsing mode.

Expression

issue.changelogs
.filter(changelog => changelog.items
.some(item => item.fieldId == 'customfield_nnnnn'))
.length 

Display as

Number

Formatting style

Default (unformatted)

Details

1. What does the expression do?

This expression counts how many times a specific custom field has been changed in a work item since it was created.

2. Step-by-step breakdown

Let’s break it down:

• issue.changelogs: This refers to the complete history of changes for the work item.

• .filter(...): This filters the changelogs to only include those where a specific custom field was changed.

• changelog.items: Each changelog contains a list of items, where each item represents a field that was changed in that update.

• .some(item => item.fieldId == 'customfield_nnnnn'): This checks if any item in the changelog refers to the custom field you are interested in (replace nnnnn with your actual custom field ID).

• .length: After filtering, this counts the number of times that the custom field was changed.

3. Examples

Suppose you have a custom field with the ID customfield_12345. The expression would look like:

issue.changelogs
.filter(changelog => changelog.items
.some(item => item.fieldId == 'customfield_12345'))
.length

If the custom field was changed 3 times in the work item’s history, the result would be 3.

4. Real-life use cases

• Tracking how often a priority or status custom field is updated in a work item.

• Auditing changes to a custom field, such as “Customer Impact” or “Risk Level,” to see how frequently it’s being reviewed or modified.

• Reporting or triggering automations when a field has been changed a certain number of times (e.g., flagging work items with frequent changes for further review).