Can I add a dummy user to JIRA?

[Deleted user]

I wanted to create a dummy account in JIRA. This dummy account will be used to assign tasks to external users (consultants) in our JIRA instance. We don't want to share that with external users. but this will enable us to keep external users (consultants) accountable for their tasks. 

If there's another method for this - I'm open to best practices! Thank you all! 

[Iain Wadie]

This is a sensible suggestion. You want to be able to see the user icon (initials) in the list view of a project, so you can quickly see who each task is assigned to.  The external consultancy may be tracking their tasks at a lower level of detail on their project board and the internal project manager wants to track it in their plan.  The alternative would be to have the team icon show up in that column if it has been assigned and their is no direct assignee.  And the team could have one member, being the person to whom the external agency is accountable to.
Or more simply, it should be possible to assign a task to a team, in addition to individuals.

[Trudy Claspill]

Hello @[deleted] 

Welcome to the community.

You said you don't want to share it with external users, but you want to be able to hold the external users accountable. How do you see implementing that accountability if you have one generic user representing all the external users, and they don't access Jira? Will there be somebody within your organization who will be responsible for interfacing with the external users to get updates?

If there is somebody internally responsible for ensuring the accountability of the external users, I would suggest it would be better to assign the issues to that internal user. If you want to track that work for that issue is being handled by external users then I would suggest using another method to flag the issue, such as adding a Label or Component, or even adding a custom field. The custom field could be a single checkbox that when checked means the task is assigned to an external user, or it could be a text field allowing you to note some fact about the specific external user (name, email, etc).

[Deleted user]

@Trudy Claspill 

Will there be somebody within your organization who will be responsible for interfacing with the external users to get updates? Yes

Are you able to walk me through the custom field set up?

[Trudy Claspill]

@[deleted] 

Are you working with a Team Managed project or a Company Managed project? It will say at the bottom of the navigation pane on the left.