Jira automation - email every assignee ever assigned

[A Lau]

I want to make an automation that will email every assignees who had ever been assigned to an issue when the description change.

I can create the workflow emailing to the current assignee but unable to find all assignees ever assigned. 

Asking ChatGPT did not help. keep asking to pick something did not exists in the workflow build UI.

Can someone show me the steps or point me to the right document?

thanks

[Bill Sheboy]

Hi @A Lau 

First thing: what problem are you trying to solve?  That is, "why do this?"  Knowing that may help the community offer additional suggestions than automation rules.

Until we know that...

There are likely several ways to solve this need, each has a common challenge: What do you want to do when someone was assigned in error?  Do you want to continue to email a person in that case?

Back to possible approaches:

1. As people are assigned, an automation rule could add them as Watchers.  This would allow them the option to "opt out" of receiving the communications by changing their own settings, or removing themself as a Watcher.
2. Although the list of previous assignees is in the work item history, it is not directly accessible to a rule. Instead, one would need to bulk-read the changelog for the assignees...and then read each one-by-one to get their email address to send separate emails to each.  (That second part is required because the changelog will not contain the email addresses.)  A workaround to bypass the looping / endpoint calls is using a multiple-selection user picker field to set them all and get the email address values
3. etc.

Before building a rule, I recommend clarifying the "why do this", and perhaps try the built-in Watcher feature described in approach #1.

Kind regards,
Bill

[Aaron Pavez _ServiceRocket_]

Hi @A Lau 

You can do it with the changelog API:

URL: https://your-domain.atlassian.net/rest/api/3/issue/{issueIdOrKey}/changelog

This is what you are looking for. we need to get the "to" into a variable:

 "created": "2026-05-29T19:10:35.812-0400",
"items": [
{
"field": "assignee",
"fieldtype": "jira",
"fieldId": "assignee",
"from": "712020:3bd23a5c-a163-4e2c-a042-0602585a5dde",
"fromString": "Rovo Dev",
"to": "60ad301a5c7373006939113f",
"toString": "Jennifer Evans",
"tmpFromAccountId": "712020:3bd23a5c-a163-4e2c-a042-0602585a5dde",
"tmpToAccountId": "60ad301a5c7373006939113f"
}
]

 first part

save the current assignee to originalAssignee , smart value {{issue.assignee.accountId}}

the variable allAssigneeIDs

smart value

{{#webResponse.body.values}}{{#items}}{{#if(equals(field, "assignee"))}}{{to}},{{/}}{{/}}{{/}}

If you create a log action you will get all past "to" values:

Lets get rid of the last comma

pastOwnerID

smart value

{{allAssigneeIDs.replaceAll(",$", "")}}

Now a branch that will loop the smart value:

this part can be done differently, but this one worked for me:

change the assigne to pastOwnerID

then send email to Assignee

then assign the work item to the original assignee

Hope that works!

Regards

[Trudy Claspill]

Hello @A Lau 

Welcome to the Atlassian community.

This is not something I have implemented before so I asked Chrome Gemini:

"in jira cloud automation how can I get all the people who have ever been assigned to a specific issue and send an email to them?"

Following is its response. I confess that I have not actually tried this suggestion.

In Jira Cloud Automation, there is no direct "past assignees" smart value that retrieves all historical assignees in a single list. To achieve this, you must use a Send web request action to call the Jira REST API, parse the issue's change history, and then email the results. [1, 2, 3, 4]

Steps to Email All Past Assignees

1. Trigger the Rule: Choose a trigger that fits your workflow (e.g., Issue Transitioned or Manual Trigger).
2. Fetch Change History:
   • Add a Send web request action.
   • URL: Use to access the full history -  {{baseUrl}}/rest/api/3/issue/{{issue.key}}?expand=changelog.
   • Method: GET
   • Authentication: Ensure you use a
     Jira API Token
     
     for authorization.
3. Parse and Filter Assignees:
   • Use a Create variable action to extract unique email addresses from the history.
   • Smart Value: Use a complex expression to filter webhookResponse.body.changelog.histories for items where the field was "assignee". [2, 10, 11]
     • i.e.: {{webResponse.body.changelog.histories.items.flatten.filter(it -> it.field == "assignee").toString}}
4. Send Email:
   • Add the Send email action.
   • To field: Insert your created variable or use the parsed smart value (e.g., ). [5, 12, 13]

Alternative: Tracking "Live" History

If you want a simpler solution for future issues, you can track assignees as they change:

• Trigger:
  Field value changed
  
  (Assignee).
• Action: Use Edit issue to append the user to a custom "Multi-user Picker" field.
• Email: You can then easily email everyone in that custom field using standard smart values. [3, 15, 16, 17, 18]

Limitations

• API Limits: The change history REST API may have paging limits if an issue has hundreds of changes.
• Privacy: Be aware that
  Jira Service Management
  
  customers may not have accessible email addresses depending on your site's privacy settings.

AI responses may include mistakes.

[1] https://community.atlassian.com/forums/Jira-questions/How-can-I-access-the-change-history-of-an-issue-in-Automation/qaq-p/2434703

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RwsQHweMBX4

[3] https://community.atlassian.com/forums/Jira-questions/Extract-previous-latest-assignee-from-a-ticket-using-smart-value/qaq-p/1734219

[4] https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/JIRAAUTOSERVER-201

[5] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tybibvub4lg

[6] https://support.atlassian.com/jira/kb/automatic-assign-user-from-project-roles-to-the-approver-field-in-jira/

[7] https://community.atlassian.com/forums/Jira-questions/Jira-Automation-How-to-set-a-custom-field-to-the-same-value-as-a/qaq-p/2556952

[8] https://community.atlassian.com/forums/Jira-questions/How-to-add-user-automatically-to-mentioned-group-in-Jira/qaq-p/2231082

[9] https://blog.jobins.jp/automating-daily-task-reports-with-jira-a-deep-dive-into-the-jira-daily-task-extractor

[10] https://www.midori-global.com/blog/2022/12/12/jira-assignee-history-report

[11] https://support.atlassian.com/jira/kb/add-update-remove-request-participants-using-automation-in-jsm-cloud/

[12] https://support.atlassian.com/jira/kb/automation-to-send-a-single-email-to-assignee-when-multiple-issues-are-due/

[13] https://community.atlassian.com/forums/Jira-questions/In-Automation-How-can-I-get-a-single-email-based-on-an-if/qaq-p/2414096

[14] https://community.atlassian.com/forums/App-Central-articles/How-to-Track-Assignee-Transitions-in-Jira/ba-p/3116940

[15] https://confluence.atlassian.com/spaces/automationkb/pages/1455430090/Automation+For+Jira+-+The+Send+Email+action+does+not+send+an+email+to+all+the+recipients

[16] https://support.atlassian.com/jira/kb/send-notification-to-previous-assignee-when-assignee-changes-on-a-jira-issue/

[17] https://confluence.atlassian.com/spaces/AUTOMATION/pages/993924860/Jira+smart+values+-+issues

[18] https://community.atlassian.com/forums/Automation-questions/Automation-in-Jira-Cloud-when-a-certain-type-of-linked-issue/qaq-p/1513782

[19] https://support.atlassian.com/jira/kb/forms-using-automation-to-notify-a-user-when-a-form-has-been-submitted-on-an-issue/

[20] https://community.atlassian.com/forums/App-Central-articles/Import-Customers-and-Organizations-into-Jira-and-Jira-Service/ba-p/3183052

[21] https://community.atlassian.com/forums/Jira-Service-Management/How-to-access-the-user-email-and-user-name-using-AJS-in-Jira/qaq-p/1319056

[22] https://community.developer.atlassian.com/t/jira-api-issues-to-retrieve-all-users-permissions-to-projects/79702

[Bill Sheboy]

Hi @Trudy Claspill 

That first endpoint may not return all changelog entries due to paging, and it will not contain the email address for each Assignee in the changelog entries.

Using the bulk-get changelogs endpoint could filter by the Assignee field, increasing the chances of one single read getting them all.  But still, either:

• looping over the results to get the email addresses by reading each user with another Send Web Request call, or,
• "cheat" and use a company-managed, multiple-selection user field to first select all of them, re-fetch, and then grab the email addresses

Kind regards,
Bill

[Trudy Claspill]

Good points @Bill Sheboy !

[Igor Medeiros - Modus Create]

Hi @Alex Lau

A subscription field is a clean way to manage the recipient list without looping through changelog history. The catch is that native Automation can't easily send to a multi-user or text field as recipients, which is why the changelog approaches above get complicated.

Our app Notification Assistant for Jira can send to a User Picker, Multi-User Picker, or hardcoded email field directly as recipients, triggered on description change. That makes your subscription-field idea work without the reassignment workaround.

Feel free to reach out if you'd like to learn more.

[Alex Lau]

Thanks everyone for all the replies and learnt a lot. I guess some of the very useful information probably will achieve what I wanted but I think I the mean time, I will go with a subscription field for users to add them to the email list without over complicated the automation rule.

Thanks a lot everyone