Epic Link value disappears on creation of issue

[Alex Unwin]

I've come across a problem with a user creating a Story/Bug/Task underneath an Epic in that when they do, Jira Cloud does not retain the value in the Epiclink field. The user in question is a member of an 'External Users' group. The problem does not occur when doing the same thing with a user that is a member of the 'Internal Users' group.

I have checked the permission scheme for the project and both internal and external groups have access to the same permissions, in fact the external users group has slightly more. Global Jira permissions have been left at their default and neither group has been specifically added.

I don't think it should have any effect on the scenario but Issue Level security has been set up so that external users can only see the Epics which relate to them. The external user can see the Epic which they are trying to link to when creating their Story/Bug/Task. However, when they first create their issue they cannot see it because the default security level is set so that internal. However, I'm planning to use automation to get by this and I'm only mentioning it for completeness.

What else might be causing the Epiclink value to disappear after issue creation by external users?

[Alex Unwin · Accepted solution]

I resolved this issue by adding 'Reporter' to the default security level security level. Ideally, I would have liked not to have reporters able to view the issues they log if a heightened security level applies at a later date, so if there is a better way of doing this then I'd love to hear it!

[Ste Wright]

Hi @Alex Unwin 

Does this happen if you remove the issue security scheme from the external users? You could test this by created a new project with shared configuration for your current one - and removing the issue security scheme.

Keen to help resolve this - could you verify:

• The issue security scheme is only applied to the Epics - there's not any issue security by default on the issues being created (eg. hidden from external users)?
• Why can't they see Epics during creation? Apologies, I was a little confused by this part.

Ste

[Alex Unwin]

Hi Ste

In relation to your specific points:

• I am not sure what you mean by applied only to Epics - I was under the impression that an issue security scheme applies to all types of issues and I can't see any way to segment types off, even if I wanted to.
• The default issue security setting is one where external users cannot see them. However, external users can see the Epics that they are creating stories/tasks/bugs under as the Epics have had their security level reduced manually.

What's interesting is that when I have just removed the issue security scheme from the project entirely in my sandbox, the problem no longer occurs - so it must be related. This needs to remain on though so that external parties cannot see any issues other than ones that have had their security level manully reduced, or ones that they have created themselves. If you have any thoughts around this I'd be very grateful!

Thanks,
Alex

[Alex Unwin]

FYI, I've attempted to resolve this using a post function on the Create transition to alter the issue security of the created issue as attached but unfortunately the EpicLink is still not populated.

[Bill Sheboy]

Hi @Alex Unwin 

Although this probably should not fail silently, it does seem like a permissions issue.  Changing the Epic Link is an edit action, and if the requestor does not have edit permission for the scope of the created issue, it will fail.  

Please check the edit permission for the user.  You could try to use the Permission Helper to see what it finds:

https://confluence.atlassian.com/adminjiracloud/jira-admin-helper-818578850.html

Best regards,

Bill

[Alex Unwin]

Hi Bill,

The user permissions look fine. External users have Edit permissions for the issue and the permission helper doesn't reveal anything untoward. Thanks for the suggestion.

Alex