Daily

Find issues stuck in progress

Each morning you see issues that have sat In Progress for too long, grouped by assignee.

Runs: Daily
Apps: Jira
AI: Not needed
Access: read

Send this to your assistant

Create a ClickRuntime automation: every morning at 8am, email me issues in project ABC that have been In Progress for more than 5 days, grouped by assignee.

Paste it into your assistant. It tells you what it will send or change before it runs live.

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First time? Adding ClickRuntime to your assistant takes about two minutes.

Why use it

Why teams use this automation

An issue moves to In Progress on a Monday, and the developer is pulled onto an urgent customer bug on Tuesday. By the following Monday it has sat in the same column for a week. The board looks healthy, because it shows a card in the right place, but nothing is happening. The delay only comes out when a stakeholder asks why a promised feature is late, and the explanation is that the ticket was forgotten.

Each day, ClickRuntime runs a JQL search for issues in In Progress whose status last changed more than 5 days ago, groups the results by assignee, and emails you the list. You can see which work has stopped moving and who currently holds it.

Engineering managers, team leads and project managers use it to find work that is stuck without watching the board constantly.

What you get out of it

Stalled work is found early
An issue sitting for five days in progress is rarely being actively worked. Spotting it on day five rather than day twenty keeps small delays from growing into missed deadlines.
Hidden blockers come out
Often an issue is stuck because the developer is waiting for a review, a decision or an environment. Asking about the item prompts that blocker to be named so the manager can remove it.
Reassignment happens before it is urgent
If someone has been pulled onto other work, the list shows it, and the issue can be given to someone with time. The commitment to the customer is saved before it is broken.
Overloaded people are noticed
One person appearing against many stuck items suggests too much work in progress. A manager can ease their load, which improves their output more than pushing them to go faster.
Honest status for stakeholders
Instead of reporting that a feature is in progress, you can report that it has not moved for a week and say what is being done. That candor builds more trust than a status that later proves wrong.

How it works

What happens, step by step

Every morning, ClickRuntime finds Jira issues that have been In Progress for more than five days.
It groups them by assignee.
You get an email listing each person's stuck issues.

Before it runs live

Connect Jira

What you get

RunsDaily

Find issues stuck in progresstoday, 9:00Succeeded

Email · 4 ABC issues In Progress for 5+ daysSam Carter ABC-366 Migrate invoices table ABC-371 Retry logic for webhooks

Build your own

Need it to work differently?

This template is a starting point. Copy the prompt and change it, or describe a different automation from scratch, with your own conditions, more apps or an AI step. Your assistant writes it, tests it and runs it on ClickRuntime.

Your own rules
Conditions, thresholds, filters and exceptions, written the way you'd explain them to a colleague.
Any number of apps
One automation can read from one app and update several others. Over 248 apps are ready, and anything with an API works too.
AI where it helps
Summaries, classification, extraction and drafts use ClickRuntime's built-in AI, with no extra key.
On a schedule or on each event
Runs as often as every 5 minutes, or the moment an app sends an event, and keeps track of what it already handled.

Changes you can ask for

Run it at a different time, more or less often, or only on weekdays
Add an AI step, for example to summarize, sort or draft a reply
Add another app, for example also send it to Slack
Combine it with other Jira steps into one automation

Under the hood

The code that runs this automation

This is the Python script that runs each time the automation starts. Your AI assistant writes it for you when you send the prompt, and you allow each step in your assistant. To change how the automation works, describe the change to your assistant and it updates the script for you. For every function it can use, see the script reference.

stuck_in_status_escalation.pyexample

from collections import defaultdict
from clickruntime import on_trigger, credentials, http, notify

JIRA = "https://api.atlassian.com/ex/jira/your-cloud-id"

def jira(method, path, **kw):
    resp = http.request(method, JIRA + path, headers={
        "Authorization": f"Bearer {credentials.connection('jira', 'work')}", "Accept": "application/json"}, **kw)
    resp.raise_for_status()
    return resp.json() if resp.content else None

def search(jql, fields, limit=100):
    return jira("POST", "/rest/api/3/search/jql", json={"jql": jql, "fields": fields, "maxResults": limit})["issues"]


@on_trigger
def run(event):
    issues = search('project = ABC AND status = "In Progress" AND NOT status changed AFTER -5d', ["summary", "assignee", "updated"], 200)
    if not issues:
        return {"stuck": 0}
    by_person = defaultdict(list)
    for i in issues:
        by_person[(i["fields"].get("assignee") or {}).get("displayName", "Unassigned")].append(f"  {i['key']} {i['fields']['summary']}")
    notify.email_me(f"{len(issues)} ABC issues In Progress for 5+ days",
                    "\n\n".join(f"{p}\n" + "\n".join(items) for p, items in sorted(by_person.items())))
    return {"stuck": len(issues)}

FAQ

Common questions

Can I use a different status or a different number of days?

Certainly. You can watch In Review, Blocked or any other status in your workflow, and choose any number of days. A review column often needs a shorter limit than development, so pick a figure that suits each stage.

What does status changed before mean in Jira?

It refers to the last time an issue entered its current status. If an issue moved to In Progress five or more days ago and has not moved since, it matches. Comments or edits to other fields do not reset that clock.

Will it include issues that were reopened recently?

A reopened issue counts from the date it entered its current status. If an issue was reopened yesterday and put straight back to In Progress, it is not listed, since the time in that status started again.

What permissions does it need?

read. Nothing else in your accounts is used.

Does it need AI?

No. It runs without AI, so it doesn't use your plan's AI allowance.

How many runs does it use?

One run each time it runs (daily). Checks that find nothing to do and stop right away aren't counted.

Can I change how it works?

Yes. Describe the change to your AI assistant, for example a different schedule, channel or filter. It updates the automation, tests it and tells you what changed.

On a schedule