JPD field changes should trigger Jira Automation and be queryable via JQL

[hatem afifi]

Category: Jira Product Discovery — Feature Suggestion

Description:

JPD tracks field change history internally — changes are visible in the History tab of each idea (who changed what, when, old value → new value). However, this history is stored in JPD's own data layer and is not written to Jira's changelog.

This creates three critical gaps:

1. Automation triggers don't fire — Neither "Field value changed" nor "Issue updated" triggers detect JPD field changes (e.g., a user/people field like "Country Manager" being updated).

2. JQL CHANGED operator doesn't work — Since JPD field changes aren't in Jira's changelog, queries like "Country Manager" CHANGED AFTER -7d return no results, even though the change is clearly recorded in JPD's History tab.

3. No standard Jira field workaround — You cannot add standard Jira custom fields (e.g., User Picker) to JPD projects, so there's no way to work around this by using a field type that does write to the changelog.

What I'd like:

• JPD field changes should write to Jira's changelog so that JQL's CHANGED, WAS, and CHANGED BY operators work for JPD fields.

• JPD field changes should emit standard Jira issue events so that automation triggers ("Field value changed", "Issue updated") fire correctly.

Use case:
We use a JPD user field to assign ownership of ideas. We need to automate notifications and workflows when this field changes — something that works seamlessly for standard Jira fields but is completely broken for JPD fields, despite JPD already tracking the change history internally.

[Bill Sheboy · Accepted solution]

Hi @hatem afifi -- Welcome to the Atlassian Community!

Short answer: the gaps you describe seem incorrect / incomplete.  Perhaps if you post your automation rule the community can provide suggestions to improve the rule.

For the concerns you described, let's first note Jira Product Discovery (JPD) builds upon Team-managed project / space (TMP) features, and you describe using a People field with automation rules.

• Automation triggers don't fire -- That is incorrect: both the Field Value Changed and Work Item Updated triggers will start a rule for a change to a People field in a JPD space
• JQL CHANGED operator doesn't work --
  • First, changes to JPD fields are recorded in the changelog.  That can easily be verified by looking at the item history when viewing the JPD idea / item.  The exception is calculated / formula fields as they only present in the UX.
  • Next, the CHANGED operator has only worked with a limited number of fields for many years and the addition of JPD features had no impact on it.  Customers have long suggested adding more fields for the operators, such as described in this JAC backlog item: JRACLOUD-30663 
• No standard Jira field workaround --
  • No workaround is needed because People fields work in rules, and...
  • In the past, global / company-managed User Picker fields could not be added to JPD spaces.  But if you try to do this now, you will find they can be added.  I recall there are limitations for some JPD features with these fields but they work well with automation rules for rule triggers, the changelog, etc.

I recommend posting the following and the community can help with your automation rule:

• what problem is your rule solving; that is, "why use this rule?"
• an image of your complete rule in a single image for continuity
• an image of the audit log details showing the rule execution
• explain what is not working as expected, and why you believe that to be the case 

Kind regards,
Bill