The user does not have permission to view this issue. This user will not be added to the watch list

[Buddhi Beames]

We have created an automation to add a Customer to the watcher list for tickets that fulfil a certain criteria. But we are getting an error saying 

"The user does not have permission to view this issue. This user will not be added to the watch list." 

Can add the user to "Requested participants" manually without any issues 

[Trudy Claspill]

Hello @Buddhi Beames 

Welcome to the Atlassian community.

That is expected behaviour.

The Watchers field is intended to be populated with licensed internal Jira Software or Jira Service Management Agent users. If you need to make an item visible to a user that only has Jira Service Management Customer access, the issue must be in a Jira Service Management space and the user must be added to the Request Participants field.

In Automation you would use the Edit Work Item action and edit the Request participants field.

Customers cannot view issues in Software spaces unless you grant them a Jira User license and given them permission to view the Software space.