Attempting to set the Reporter based upon taking the name from the Description field

[Mark Dodd]

I have been successful in pulling the name from description information where the name is in a table field

Example information

I have an automation set to set the Reporter field to the following 

{{issue.description.match("Requestor:\\s*([^|\\n\\r]+)\\s*(?=\\||\\n|\\r|$)").trim}}

I have confirmed via logging that it is pulling the name without spaces correctly using the above code and in the above description example it gives "Mark Dodd" without the quotes.

But it is just setting the reporter to Anonymous and I can't figure out why.

[Varun Chillamcharla]

Hi Mark,

Yes, there's a native way to do this in Automation, use the "Lookup users" action.

1. Add a "Lookup users" action before your "Edit issue field" step

2. Set the search criteria to Display name (or email if you have that instead), and feed it the name you extracted, e.g., {{issue.description.match("Requestor:\\s*([^|\\n\\r]+)\\s*(?=\\||\\n|\\r|$)").trim}}

3. This returns a list of matching users into a variable, typically referenced as {{lookupUsers}}

4. Then in your "Edit issue field" step for Reporter, use {{lookupUsers.first.accountId}} instead of the raw name

One thing to watch for, this only works reliably if the name in your Description exactly matches a user's actual Display Name in Jira, nicknames, typos, or "Last, First" vs "First Last" formatting will cause no match. Worth adding a check for when lookupUsers comes back empty, so you're not silently defaulting to Anonymous again in those cases.

[Brandon Viertel]

Morning @Mark Dodd ,

Welcome to the community!

When setting the reporter field (or any other user object field), I believe it only accepts Atlassian account IDs. When invalid data is used, it defaults to Anonymous. 

Thanks!

Brandon 

[Mark Dodd]

is there anyway to look up a users ID based upon the name.

I just assumed it would take the name as when you paste in a name to the field it finds the person.