How to access note author in Operations / Opsgenie

[Michal Patoprsty]

Hello everyone,

I am trying to set up automation/ flow which will do some action, when a new note in Opsgenie/ Operations Alert is added. I have set up automation trigger for AddNote action, however I am unable to access user who added note in smart values. 

According to documentation https://support.atlassian.com/cloud-automation/docs/jira-smart-values-alerts/ it's only possible to access {{alert.note}} 

How to access through smart value alert note author ?  

[Dave Mathijs]

Hi @Michal Patoprsty 

In Jira Service Management (JSM) Cloud Operations/Opsgenie automations, the standard {{alert}} smart value object is heavily restricted. As you rightly found in the documentation, Atlassian explicitly exposes {{alert.note}}, but does not natively provide a smart value like {{alert.noteAuthor}} or {{initiator}} for the user who added that note.

When an alert automation is triggered by an Opsgenie action, the execution context treats the system/automation integration itself as the rule actor rather than the specific user who typed the note, stripping out the author data from standard smart values.

To access the note author's identity, you can use the two workarounds detailed below:

Workaround 1: Capture the Author via Opsgenie-to-JSM Activity Logging (Recommended)

• Configure the Integration: Ensure your Opsgenie-to-Jira integration is configured so that when an alert note is added, it syncs over and adds a comment to the mapped Jira issue. Opsgenie pushes this text structurally (e.g., "John Doe added a note: [Note content]").

• Change the Automation Trigger: Instead of triggering on the Alert Note Added, change your automation trigger to Issue Commented. 

• Isolate the Author via Smart Values: Because it is now a native Jira comment context, you can easily parse the author.

  • If the rule executes based on the user's actual session, you can fetch them using {{comment.author.displayName}} or {{comment.author.accountId}}.

  • If the comment is posted textually by the connection sync user, use text-parsing smart values to extract the name directly out of the comment text string: {{comment.body.substringBefore(" added a note:")}}

Workaround 2: Extract User Data using the Opsgenie Webhook Payload

If you are using the Incoming Webhook trigger or looking at the raw JSON payload payload delivered when an Opsgenie Alert action triggers an automation, Atlassian stores a temporary object called {{webhookData}}.

When an action like AddNote happens in Opsgenie, the backend API payload sends an owner or user block detailing who initiated the event.

1. Identify the payload: Set up a temporary log action in your rule using {{webhookData}} to print the entire payload to your Audit Log when a note is added.

2. Access the Author: Once you review the JSON structure in your audit log, you will find that the actor is nested inside the payload data. Typically, it can be extracted using:

   • {{webhookData.action.user}} (Returns the username or email of the note adder)

   • {{webhookData.alert.username}} (Depending on the specific alert webhook integration schema)

Using {{webhookData.[property]}} bypasses the restricted {{alert}} smart value documentation limitations, giving you direct access to the raw metadata of the API event that kicked off the rule.