Can the "Automation for Jira" User Be Used to Change Comment Visibility to a Role?

[Youssef Soliman]

I have some automation rules in Jira Cloud that add comments to work items based on certain triggers. However, I would like the added comments to only be visible to a certain project role (ex. "Developers"). 

In the "add comment to work item" action, I choose the project role I want under the comment visibility section. But then I get an error that the user doesn't have permission to this role. My instinct was to grant the "Automation for Jira" which is the rule actor this project role, but then I couldn't find any way to do that. Any ideas or recommendations?

[Trudy Claspill · Accepted solution]

Answer Edited:

Hello @Youssef Soliman 

Welcome to the Atlassian community.

You are running into a few limitations of Jira Automation.

1. Setting comment visibility to a Project Role can be done only be members of that role.

2. You cannot manage group or role membership for the Automation for Jira user.

The only available work-around at this time is to change the Rule Actor to a user account that is a member of the role.

References:

https://support.atlassian.com/automation/kb/automation-rule-or-change-the-comment-visibility-to-group-project-role-when/

https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/AUTO-476

If you have multiple roles that you want to be able to use in this one rule, then you might want to create a generic user account that you can assign to all the roles. Of course, that account will have to have a legitimate email address for which you can access the Inbox so that you can complete the process of account registration. Or it would have to be a Managed Account for your company.

[Bill Sheboy]

Hi @Trudy Claspill 

For your second limitation point, did you actually mean this?

You can Jira customers (e.g., site admins) cannot manage group or role membership for the Automation for Jira user.

If you have found a way to change the access of that built-in user, how is that done?  Thanks!

Kind regards,
Bill

[Trudy Claspill]

You are correct @Bill Sheboy . I mistyped my response.

I have updated it to correctly state that we cannot add the Automation for Jira user directly to User Groups or Project Roles.

And my second point about the "group" to which that user belongs is irrelevant because the user is assigned to the system-managed Project Role atlassian-addons-project-access, not to any user group. So I have deleted that point.