JSM Customer Portal - User Picker field is not saved for customers, but works for agents

[三浦 結花]

Hi everyone,

We are experiencing an issue with Jira Service Management Cloud that started on June 24 and is occurring across all of our service projects.

Environment

• Jira Service Management Cloud
• Customer Portal
• Standard Jira User Picker (single user) custom field
• Multiple service projects

Issue

When a customer (non-JSM licensed user) creates a request from the Customer Portal:

• The User Picker field can be searched and selected successfully.
• The selected user's accountId is included in the request payload.
• The request is created successfully.
• However, the User Picker field is not saved and remains empty.

When the same request is created by a JSM agent (licensed user), the User Picker field is saved correctly.

What we have confirmed

• The issue started on June 24.
• It occurs across multiple service projects.
• It affects the standard Jira User Picker field.
• The request payload contains the selected user's accountId.
• The response from the Customer Portal API returns an empty fields array.
• The field is also empty when viewed from the agent interface, so the value is not being saved.
• No workflow, automation, field configuration, or request type changes were made before the issue started.

This does not appear to be related to the JSM license itself. Instead, agents and customers appear to use different request creation flows, and the issue only occurs when requests are created through the Customer Portal.

Based on our investigation, the browser sends the selected user correctly, but the value is not persisted during server-side issue creation.

Has anyone experienced the same issue recently?

Is this a known Jira Cloud or Jira Service Management bug, or has there been a recent behavior change?

Any information would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

[Radwan Almsora]

This issue is usually caused by Customer Permissions restricting portal users from viewing other accounts in the directory, or it is a known regression following backend API updates in Jira Cloud.

Why this happensNon-licensed customers (portal-only users) lack the global "Browse users" permissions that agents have. When a customer tries to save a user in a standard User Picker field through the Portal, the system-level security validation blocks the field value because the customer is not permitted to explicitly link or share requests with specific non-agent users.

I belive this was answered here: 

Some users are not appearing in any user picker field when raising a request from the Customer Portal

User picker fields on the customer portal don't work

[三浦 結花]

Thank you for your response.

I believe our issue is slightly different from the two KB articles you shared.

In our environment:

• Customers can search and select users in the standard User Picker field.

• The selected user's accountId is included in the request payload (customfield_xxxxx).

• The request is created successfully.

• However, after issue creation, the User Picker field is empty.

• The response from the Customer Portal API returns "fields": [], and the field is also empty in the agent view.

We also confirmed that this occurs even when selecting users from the same organization. Therefore, this does not appear to be related to Customer Permissions or users being hidden from the directory.

Could you please confirm whether this behavior is expected, or if there are any recent changes or known bugs related to saving standard User Picker fields through the Customer Portal?

Thank you.