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Extract previous (latest) assignee from a ticket using smart value

Vandyck Lai Kai Yong

Hi, I am figuring out how to retrieve the previous assignee from a ticket request.

The reason why I am doing this is to remove the assignee from the watcher list once that particular person is being moved out of the assignee. I am thinking of smart value implementing on an automation.

This is the automation that I have in mind but it does not work due to the invalid smart value.

remove watcher automation.PNG

Accepted answers

Bill Sheboy

Hi @Vandyck Lai Kai Yong

Have you tried using the change log to access this value? For example, this would return the ID of the previous assignee, assuming you have the same trigger of field change on assignee:

Best regards,

Bill

All comments

Marco Brundel

Hi @Vandyck Lai Kai Yong

In another community item ( https://community.atlassian.com/t5/Marketplace-Apps-Integrations/How-can-assign-previous-user-on-a-defined-issue-status/qaq-p/650912 )

I see Andreas mentioning the following smart value.

Does this work for you?

Regards. Marco

Vandyck Lai Kai Yong

Hi @Marco Brundel

It does not work but I came up with an idea is there any way for me to extract the assignee value from audit log in another automation and remove the watcher by running the "Remove assignee from watcher" automation?

Something like this, I want to retrieve the assignee value from this audit log to be used in the remove watcher block.

set previous assignee.PNG

Cheers,

Lai Kai Yong

Bill Sheboy

Hi @Vandyck Lai Kai Yong

Have you tried using the change log to access this value? For example, this would return the ID of the previous assignee, assuming you have the same trigger of field change on assignee:

Best regards,

Bill

Vandyck Lai Kai Yong

Hey @Bill Sheboy

This works perfectly, thank you so much.

mario.lurig

Slightly different answer to a similar question.

We wanted to get the previous assignee before automation changed it (as part of a workflow transition post action) to assignee "Automation by Jira" so we could set it back to the original. Here's the important details:

Create Variable {{oldAssigneeId}} with the smart value {{assignee.accountId}}
Edit Field (Assignee): {{oldAssigneeId}}

TL;DR To store and use assignee, you need to be using the unique Account ID of that user, and that is stored in the {{assignee.accountId}} smart value. Reference: https://support.atlassian.com/cloud-automation/docs/jira-smart-values-users/

Joe Harrington_25rhsw

Hi @mario.lurig , I'm looking to revert an assignee to a previous assignee (could be one of several, not a constant value) upon the transition of an issue from one status to one of two statuses. Do you know if there's a way to change the smart value {{assignee.acountId}} to be dynamic and point to an assignee at a certain status in the workflow?

-Thanks,

Joe

mario.lurig

Not that I'm aware of. There is the audit log, but I wasn't able to access the smartvalues from there well.

Bill Sheboy

Hi @Joe Harrington

There isn't anything built-in to do that.

If you are always going back to the prior assignee, you could save the prior assignee whenever it changes, in a custom field and use that value later to revert. If your workflow allows multiple transitions, and you want to target one prior status (e.g. back to the person assigned when in "Build") you could save multiple values in multiple custom fields.

Kind regards,
Bill

Janusz Bułakowski

Hey @Bill Sheboy any idea how to change this id into displayName because
{{changelog.assignee.from.displayName}} is not working.

Bill Sheboy

Hi @Janusz Bułakowski

I believe you can only get the account id value from the change log for users, and so there are a couple of work-arounds to get the displayName:

set that value to a user field (either an existing one or a custom field), re-fetch the issue, and then you can access the displayName from the updated field
call the REST API from the rule with a web request action using the account id to get the other user fields.

Kind regards,
Bill

Rinaldi James Michael

This works for me in Jira Data Center. None of the other answers worked for me. Maybe these only work for a while.

{{changelog.assignee.fromString}}

Bill Sheboy

Hi @Rinaldi James Michael

Context is important for rules, and so perhaps your rule structure (and use of the changelog) prevented the other methods from helping.

{{from}} returns the entire object (i.e., assignee) and {{fromString}} returns whatever the default attribute is. That is different for different objects, and could be id, name, value, or the entire field. And so your rule structure may have only been helped using that default attribute, which I believe is the accountId for the assignee field.

Kind regards,
Bill

rajeswari saravanan

Hi @Vandyck Lai Kai Yong

I have similar task to get the value of assignee in one of the status

eg-

we do have

code review —> ready for test —> In test —> testing complete —>dod review

In this,when we are moving to DoD review ,I want the assignee whom its been assigned in code review status using smart values (automation rule) please guide us in this.

@Derek Owens @Bill Sheboy @Rinaldi James Michael

Any help much appreciated

Bill Sheboy

Hi @rajeswari saravanan

As this is an older thread, I recommend creating a new question, and perhaps linking to this one. That will ensure the maximum number of people see it to offer suggestions.

When you create your question, please include:

explain the problem you are trying to solve; that is, "why do this"
include an image of your complete rule
include images of any relevant trigger, actions, conditions, and branches
include an image of the audit log details showing the rule execution
explain what is not working as expected and how you know that

Thanks!

Kind regards,
Bill

Niklas Malmberg

Found this thread today and it helped me to implement this in our system. Many thanks to @Bill Sheboy and other contributors.

Here's a concise solution for a Team-managed Jira software project if anyone would like to copy it:

Step 0: I created a custom field 'Previous Assignee Name' in my project.
Then, I created this rule with 3 steps:
Screenshot 2026-01-20_000794.png Screenshot 2026-01-20_000795.png Screenshot 2026-01-20_000796.png

Notes:
1. Although I only use the trigger when Assignee field is _deleted_, it works just fine also when one name is replaced with another too, not just changed to [unassigned] (=delete)
2. fromString returns here the user display name which can be used at once

Evie Z.

This topic is now closed as the discussion has become outdated. If you have more questions or want to continue the conversation, feel free to start a new topic. For more details on why we close older threads, check out our Rules of engagement - Atlassian Community .

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