The "Raise issue" action has a setting for the deduplication key in an issue. What is it for?
Without a deduplication mechanism, it would've been too easy to create many duplicate issues by mistake. That would pose a problem, because issues can't be deleted, only archived, so you can end up with potentially thousands of mistakenly created issues that can't be deleted.
To prevent this problem and to ensure that only necessary issues are created, the action has a built-in deduplication mechanism. The mechanism is simple - in each issue, there is a semi-random key (alpha-numeric string of characters) generated automatically.
By default, in the "No, don't do anything" mode, each instance of the "Raise issue" action only creates an issue if there are no still open issues created by exactly this action. It also means that:
- If an issue was created by this particular action but then it was archived, the action does create a new issue
- Instances of the "Raise issue" action are independent. I.e. if there is another "Raise issue" action in the same workflow (e.g. in another table or module), that that other action has its own deduplication mechanism and can create new issues (or not) independently.
- Each instance of the "Raise issue" action sets its own hidden deduplication key in the issue.
In the "Yes, always" mode, the deduplication mechanism is not enforced and there is no restriction on creating issues. Using this mode is highly not recommended.
Finally, in the "Yes, if none of the open issues is related to the key below" mode, the action can create a new issue only if none of the still open (i.e., not archived) issues has the deduplication key explicitly set in the field below the option.
How to pick a deduplication key
If you need the same "Raise issue" action create many open issues, use a deduplication key that is guaranteed to be unique per issue. For instance, if you create a new issue for each incoming order, use the order number (order ID) as the deduplication key.
Other examples:
- Current date (if you don't expect the action to create more than 1 issue per day)
- Transaction ID
- Customer's email (if you don't expect multiple open issues related to the same customer)
- File path (if only one issue can be related to that particular file)