Auto-archive items in your projects

[2percentsilk]

We've just released auto-archived for your projects to help keep you boards and table tidy and focused on what's most important now. No longer will you need to set aside time to select all closed items and archive them.

Check out how to set up your workflow and give us feedback as you try it out!

Auto-archive.mp4

[tay1orjones]

I'm so glad to see this workflow become available! 🎉

While last-updated is nice, I'd like to instead automatically archive items based on what iteration/sprint they were included in.

Use case

Previously, before this workflow was available, we set up a view for items that are ready to be archived. The filter it uses only gathers closed or merged items that are 3 sprints or older (or have no sprint):

is:closed,merged -sprint:<@current,@previous,@next,@previous-1,@previous-2 

Since insights charts do not include archived items, auto-archiving based on this filter is crucial to retain usable data in our charts for planning purposes. For instance, we track the total count of issues from our past three sprints in attempt to forecast how much we should plan for the next sprint. We've clearly over-planned our current Sprint 46! 😅

[archon810]

A side question - is is:closed,merged necessary instead of just is:closed? Would there ever be a merged that isn't closed?

[2percentsilk]

@archon810
closed will match pull requests that are closed without merging (as well as any closed issues), while merged explicitly refers to pull requests. is:closed, merged will give you the union of merged pull requests AND closed issues AND closed without merged pull requests. So it really depends on what you're trying to accomplish! In some cases, it doesn't matter (aka when you're already scoped to PRs) but it does matter if your workflow looks at issues AND PRs.

[alexanderniebuhr]

@2percentsilk we do have the same requirement, regarding iterations. As far as timezone concern, I think either two possibilities could be great:

• let users define a management timezone in the setting of the projects, which this workflow is based on
• run the workflow when the last timezone on the world has finished the iteration, there has to be a way to tell which is the latest timezone

maybe at least allow the modifier with a information about the issue until a perfect solution is found, i rather have the modifier with timezone issue, than not having it at all

[tay1orjones]

@2percentsilk I'm not too concerned about the workflow running exactly when the iteration ends. As @alexanderniebuhr mentioned, an option would be nice but honestly in my mind the iteration isn't over until it's over for everyone.

Running it the day after the iteration ends would be fine, or when the last timezone hits and the day is officially over. IDLW, UTC−12:00 is the "last" time zone and is ~8hrs behind NYC.

[iPwnPancakes]

Apologies for reviving this older feature request, but I found myself wanting this exact same thing.

Regarding the timezone issue, the only idea I can come up with is adding a particular timezone field to the project in the project settings and giving users the option to view the project as a different timezone than the one configured

[lfrancke]

Thanks for this feature and congratulations on shipping! 🎉

I have one minor issue.

This filter works fine in my board (status is a custom field) but when I use the same filter in the auto archive box I get this:

As you can see: It still shows the correct amount (3 items fit this filter) but it complains that the filter is invalid.
I assume it's going to work but the warning is confusing.

[ghost]

I would also like to see status supported in the auto-archiving feature.

[sercanuste]

+1

[lfrancke]

I can now report that this is broken. It archived all our things across all "status" fields - so it executed part of the filter and ignored the thing it deemed invalid. This is bad @2percentsilk

[2percentsilk]

Thanks for the report and sorry this happened :(

The filter shouldn't run at all if a piece is invalid so I'll get that filed and fixed.

While we don't have an undo button, if you go to the archive page, you'll be able to select your items and restore them to the project board with their custom field values they had previously.

[lfrancke]

Thank you!

[lfrancke]

Apart from the issue I mentioned in my other thread I have one other point of feedback:

It's a tiny bit confusing to have the "When" filter at the top which only lists issue and pull request but not drafts, especially when the whole thing can be done with a filter query anyway:

I believe selecting issue at the top is equivalent to this filter is:draft,issue.
Wouldn't it make more sense to separate them or to leave out the When bit entirely?

[hCraker]

Hello,
My team is using the new project board view. It has been working great for us, but we've had some issues with issues being auto archived despite that workflow being turned off in our project settings. Has anyone else encountered this since the auto-archive feature was added?

Thanks,
Heather

[joshuacwnewton]

Hi there! I'd like to use the auto-archive workflow with the is:closed status, but only for issues that are closed as "Not planned". In other words, I'd like to preserve the issues that are closed as "Completed", because it's useful to display them in a Done status column for release planning.

I can't seem to find a way to distinguish between the two types of is:closed, though. Is there a way?

[2percentsilk]

is:closed, reason:"not planned" should do that for you!

[joshuacwnewton]

Thank you so much! I just tested this out and it works perfectly.

Apologies for the noise on a (somewhat) unrelated discussion thread!

[rileybroughten]

Adding feedback from another discussion from @doronguttman:

The auto-archive feature on projects is great!
But it would be better if it could only archive items of a certain status (e.g. status:Done) - currently the status filter is not supported.

[blaxphoenix]

It would be good indeed. In my case, this would help archive only "Done" tickets, not all closed tickets. Is there any info on when this would be available? Thanks! 😄

[goslackware]

Is this feature available in enterprise server (self hosted)? If so, what version was or will it be added to?

[rileybroughten]

@goslackware - This (along with auto-add workflow) will be available in GHES 3.9 👍

[healthbjk]

The documentation suggests that only these filters are supported:
"You can only use the is, reason, and last-updated filters."

However, it sorta acts like it recognizes updated:

Are there undocumented filters?

[lfrancke]

This looks to be the same as https://github.com/orgs/community/discussions/36466#discussioncomment-3922308

[healthbjk]

It appears different to me. The filter appears as valid:

[reneexeener]

last-updated is only used inside Projects so we added support for updated to make it more consistent with the rest of GH search. We encourage users to use updated. I will let the team know that the doc needs to be updated. Thanks for reporting this!

[parberge]

We want to auto archive pull requests that are closed and not merged.
Tried with this filter is:draft,pr is:closed is:unmerged, which works if you use it in the pull request page.
However using it in the auto-archive workflow we get the following message:

Even though it warned us we could still use the query, but the result was ofc not what we wanted (it archived pull requests that was closed and merged).

Is there a way to auto archive closed unmerged PRs?

[parberge]

Oh seems like this is the correct query to use: is:draft,pr is:closed -is:merged.

[dinaolmelak]

Hello 👋 ,
I would like to start by expressing my gratitude for this awesome feature. I just wanted to mention the recent bother I discovered. I realized that it takes its sweet time for archiving.

You can see the filter has been triggered but it is not archiving it. Am I missing something?