Elements Connect

Live update

Object fields can become “Live”, meaning their display value updates each time the issue is viewed.

To activate this “Live” feature, use the “Live update” option.

image-20260102-140311.png


When Live mode is enabled:

  • The display value refreshes on issue view

  • The refresh mechanism relies on a dedicated query: “Live path” for REST API data sources, or “SQL Live Query” (for database connections)

Why Use a Separate Live path/query?

A Live path is useful when:

Optimizing calls to the data source

Example:

  • Path retrieves all work items

  • Live path retrieves only the selected item

Avoiding $userinput problems

User inputs cannot be reused in Live paths.
Instead, Live paths should rely on the stored ID.

Filtering by the current field value

You can reference the stored ID using:


FreeMarker enabled

FreeMarker disabled

Single Select

${currentCustomfield.id}

$currentCustomfield.id

Multi Select

${currentCustomfield.ids}

Although all the other configurations are returning a string, this one returns a list.

Use operators such as ?join(",") or iterate with a <#list> to transform it into a string (check example below).

$currentCustomfield.ids

Example – Jira API

Initial path:

/search/jql?jql=project=MYPROJECT&fields=*all

Live path:

Single select:

/search/jql?jql=key=${currentCustomfield.id}

Multi select:

/search/jql?jql=key in (${currentCustomfield.ids?join(",")})

In these examples, Freemarker is activated.
If Freemarker is not activated replace ${currentCustomfield.id} by $currentCustomfield.id

Known limitations

  • The “Live” update takes into account the cache, which means that it can take some time to reflect data source changes in the connected custom field, depending on what you’ve configured in your datasource & field.

  • For Live fields, the value is only updated when the issue is viewed, nowhere else, which can lead to discrepancies on reports or JQL filters.