Automation for Jira - Transfer User wont find all Rules from a User

Question

Hello all,

We currently have the issue that a user has left the company and she is listed in some automation rules.
I have performed a user change via "Transfer User" and some rules were found and these were changed successfully.
However, I was informed today that there are still "open" rules in which the user is set as assignee.

My question now is - what does the "Transfer User" pay attention to?
The rule that was not found is "edit Issue" - set Field "assignee" to "specific user".
Is it not found because of the "edit issue"?

br,
Harald

Bill Sheboy · Answer

Hi @Harald Mayer

As you note, Transfer User will help quite a bit, and it cannot find everything currently.  Some additional actions to help are to use the rule export feature to find rules to update:

* as site admin, export all of the automation rules to JSON from the global management area
* determine the account ID for the user to be replaced
* search in the JSON file for any references to the account ID, and note the name of the impacted rule
* back inside of Jira, work with the rule owners to update and test each of the rules when changing the departing user

I suspect it would be possible to perform this in an automated manner by directly editing the JSON and reloading the rules.  IMHO, I would wait until Atlassian builds in the feature to Transfer User rather than trying that.

Some other places to check which rules might reference: group permissions, entity properties, and REST API token ownership.

Kind regards,
Bill

Jimmy Petersson · Answer

Hi Harald,

Doc Link: https://support.atlassian.com/cloud-automation/docs/transfer-jira-automation-rules-from-one-user-to-another/

Note that the documentation states:

Note that this process takes all references to your chosen user in all rules, and replace them with the new user. This includes Rule actor, Rule owner, and any time the user is chosen in a user picker.

If I look at my Jira server, project automation and the 'Edit Issue' action the way of setting Assignee is based on actor role or specific user defined on Jira Server, i e user picker selection. Providing you have explicitly specified your ex employee's name, and not assigned based on actor role, the documentation supports your understanding of the feature.

Note that even if this feature did work as expected, other automation actions exist that does not use a user picker selection, e g mail notification can be done to a hardcoded mail address and would not be caught/corrected.

Best Regards

//Jimmy