JIRA Add read-only users for free?

[Nina Barley]

We need to tag users (from a list of users) in Jira, but these people don't need to get into Jira, or if they do, they need only browse or read-only access. Is there a way to do this without having to pay for 5000 people who aren't really using our Jira instance?

I tried Jira Service Management, but it adds a lot of functionality we don't need, and complicates things unnecessarily.

[Trudy Claspill]

Hello @Nina Barley 

This post asked a similar question about free, but not anonymous, read-only access. One answer suggests a specific third party product. I don't know if that would allow you to include the users in a User Picker field though.

[Nina Barley]

Thank you, yes, it's similar. It doesn't, unfortunately, solve my problem. My problem is basically that I want to be able to @ mention people who are not Jira users. Otherwise, it's a hassle to have to look them up and embed their info manually.

[Trudy Claspill]

I am not aware of any native way to allow read-only access for free that would also let you use a user picker field or mention the users in issues.