Using Automation to set Reporter from Body
Asked by Matt Adorjan:

We are trying to use Jira Automation (in Jira Cloud) to set the reporter field based on part of the body of the email.

For example, when part of the body of a request is "#reporter jsmith" (where jsmith is a username of a user different than the one sending the email), it should adjust the Reporter value. We have a similar need to do this with #assignee, as well.

This allows our service desk to submit tickets on behalf of other users without having to manually change the reporter after sending the request.

I've been trying a lot of different things, but haven't had success yet. I am thinking this may be because of the conversion from username -\> user ID.

Here is an example of something I tried:

```

{
  "update": {
    "reporter": {
      "set": {{issue.description.match("(?i).*#reporter\s*(.*)").asJsonObject("id")}}
    }
  }
}
```

I would love some feedback on the best way to do this, or to let me know if this isn't even possible.

Thanks!


Answers:
author: Simmo
body: Hi [@Matt Adorjan](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/3689926)

What is the exact value that you're trying to do? In the use of the reporter field, you can only set it via account ID. If you're not using their Atlassian account ID, it will not set.

Are these customers or normal Atlassian accounts?

Cheers,

Simeon.

comments: author: Matt Adorjan
body: Thanks [@Simmo](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/3608665) !

I think you hit it on the head "you can only set it via account ID".

I have tried

#reporter jsmith

#reporter jsmith@acmecorp.com

For the #reporter field, they will be customers. For the #assignee field, they will be Atlassian accounts (service desk agents).

Some more background - we are just migrating from on-premise to cloud. We currently handle this with an add-on (ScriptRunner) but I wanted to see if I could eliminate ScriptRunner as much as possible and do this natively in Jira automation. However, it sounds like, in order to retain the same functionality, I may need to keep this in ScriptRunner and actually add a step that converts a username (jsmith) into the Atlassian Account ID.

-Matt


author: Simmo
body: Hey [@Matt Adorjan](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/3689926)

So if this is just the reporter field, do you know if it just customers or if it could be your regular users as well?


author: Simmo
body: I just helped another customer with a very similar issue. See <https://community.atlassian.com/t5/Automation-questions/Changing-the-reporter-field-with-a-smart-value-and-keep-getting/qaq-p/1698187>

That might help you?


author: Matt Adorjan
body: [@Simmo](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/3608665) that looks like it would work for our use case and actually potentially solves another problem we were encountering with creating customers!

2 follow up questions (#1 is most related to this, I can open a new question for #2 if needed):

1. The part I need clarification on - are you able to share the example of how they are pulling the reporter from the body and putting it into a custom field?
2. And then I assume this only works with service desk customers. Curious if there is suggested option for doing something similar, but for a field like "assignee" where the users would be already existing Atlassian Users.

Thank you for your help!

-Matt


author: Simmo
body: Hey Matt,

I'm afraid I'm not sure how they are doing that but if you can provide a sample of one of your bodies we might be able to figure it out?

Cheers,

Simeon.


author: Martin Bayer _MoroSystems_ s_r_o__
body: Hi [@Matt Adorjan](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/3689926) can you share the whole Automation configuration so I can test it and try to help?

comments: author: Matt Adorjan
body: Hi [@Martin Bayer _MoroSystems_ s_r_o__](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/527698) -

The automation I am trying is:

* When: Issue Created
* If "Description" contains "#reporter"
* Then: Edit issue fields -\> Advanced
  * The goal here is to look for #reporter and grab the username after it and set it as the reporter. Same behavior for #assignee.

![jira-automation-1700918.PNG](https://community.atlassian.com/t5/image/serverpage/image-id/144471iC260ECFE7B6ADBF6/image-size/large?v=v2&px=999 "jira-automation-1700918.PNG")

Sounds like based on what Simeon Ross posted, that I may need to convert this to the user's ID first.


Tags: cloud