Can users in the people section of a jira ticket automatically be added as a watcher?

[Charlie Banks]

It looks like in Jira, you have to add yourself as a Watcher on a ticket or you become a watcher if you were an Assignee (I think?).  Would it be possible to automatically set anyone who is listed in the People section as a Watcher?  

Thanks in advance.

Charlie.

[Trudy Claspill · Accepted solution]

Hello @Charlie Banks 

Welcome to the Atlassian community!

Do I understand correctly that you want to make all the people who have been granted access to the project Watchers on every issue created in that project?

What problem are you trying to solve by doing this?

[Charlie Banks]

Thanks for responding. In the Jira ticket there is a people section that contains users working on the ticket (assignee, reporter, product owner, developer, tester) and I have a user that wants to know if everyone in that people section can be watchers automatically Vs just the reporter and the assignee.

Thanks, I apologize if its confusing.

Charlie.

[Trudy Claspill]

Hello @Charlie Banks 

Thank you for that clarification.

Are you working with Jira Cloud or Jira Server/Data Center? If your URL looks like this, then you are working with Jira Cloud:

https://<your company>.atlassian.net

There is a feature called Automation for Jira that could be used to make the users from additional User Picker fields Watchers on the issue. The capabilities of the feature differ depending on your hosting type (Cloud or Server/Data Center).

Automation for Jira Cloud: https://support.atlassian.com/jira-software-cloud/docs/automate-your-jira-cloud-processes-and-workflows/

Automation for Jira Data Center: https://confluence.atlassian.com/automation/

[Charlie Banks]

Thanks we use Jira server 8.13.22.

Url is jira.companyname.com

We are moving to Jira cloud later in the year.

[Trudy Claspill]

Jira Server does not automatically include the Automation for Jira feature, but it can be added by your Jira Administrators:

Automation for Jira Server - Lite 

Jira Administrators and Jira Project Administrators are permitted to create Automation Rules with this feature.

The link to the documentation is

https://confluence.atlassian.com/automation

You would need to construct a rule with an appropriate trigger.

https://confluence.atlassian.com/automation/jira-automation-triggers-993924804.html

The ideal trigger would be Field Values Changed so that you could trigger the rule when one of those user picker fields changes. Unfortunately that is not available in the Lite version of A4J. The next option to look at would be Issue Updated. That one would be triggered for all kinds of updates on the issue though, so you might have to add some additional components to try to figure out if the change was one of the user picker fields or something else.

You would then need to include an action to Manage Watchers.

https://confluence.atlassian.com/automation/jira-automation-actions-993924834.html

You would also have to consider that if one of those fields changed from one user to another, should the original user be removed as a Watcher? That would make the rule more complicated.

Is the work required to achieve this really worth the effort for you to figure out on Jira Server? Or can it wait until you migrate to Jira Cloud? The A4J feature in Jira Cloud has more options.

[Charlie Banks]

Ok, Thanks for this information. I appreciate it.

[Davide Cascapera]

Hi Charlie,

i dont think that you can add automatically people as watcher but, you can try to create a new group add those people in this, and use a custom field multi picker users, or a group picker (maybe is better for your use); to make it automatically   you have only use an automation to populate the custom field

Regards

Davide Cascapera