Add mentioned users to Custom Field User Picker without overriding existing Users

[Christian Piermayr]

Hi guys!

We set the issue-level security to Assignee and Contributor(s) because there are sensitive projects where only a selected few should see all issues. For ease of use, I wanted to implement an automation that adds people as contributors once they are mentioned in a comment or the description.

I was able to use the suggestion from Solved: Finding Mentioning a User in Comment ... and Custom Field User Picker (multiple users) check but when multiple users are mentioned in the same comment, only one of them gets added, and the existing contributors are overwritten (which is problemativ because they lose view and edit rights for the issue).

Do you guys have any suggestions on how to adjust the automation rule so that all mentioned users in a comment (and ideally also in the description) get added, while the previously set contributors remain untouched?

Thanks for your help!

[Bill Sheboy]

Hi @Christian Piermayr 

Did you try my suggestion from the other post to add all of the Contributors at one time?

https://community.atlassian.com/forums/Automation-questions/Re-Re-Finding-Mentioning-a-User-in-Comment-and-Cust/qaq-p/3107805/comment-id/15214#M15214

Kind regards,
Bill

[Christian Piermayr]

Hi @Bill Sheboy

Thanks for you patience - I was out of office for a few days.

I tried your suggestion and removed the branching, but I may have missed something. I'm now seeing an error I don't recognize and would appreciate your guidance.

[Bill Sheboy]

Hi @Christian Piermayr 

That error seems puzzling to me: it normally indicates the field is selected from the dropdown list and provided with JSON in the edit action.

Let's try this: disable your current rule, and re-create it from scratch.  Then re-test it.  That will determine if the stored rule was somehow corrupted due to several edits...which can sometimes happen with the editor.

Also please note: your rule is using conditions to check the created variable does not equal the assignee and the custom field does not contain the list of values in the variable.

That approach will only work when there is only one user mentioned in the comment.  If you expect to add multiple users, another approach is needed:

• remove the assignee's accountId from the variable when it is present
• remove any existing values from the variable when present
• check if anything remains in the variable, and only then try to add the new values