Does the API accept Email Addresses for User fields?

Question

It seems the API accepts email addresses for some user fields but not all. Can anybody help me understand this a bit better?

From my testing "Raise On Behalf Of" accepts email addresses, single user-picker fields accept email addresses, multi user-picker fields accept email addresses.

However "Request Participants" does not accept email addresses, only account IDs.

Is this expected behavior? Is there any way to pass an email address into "Request Participants" rather than having to pull the users accountID before passing in the request?

Anandhi Arumugam _Cprime_ · Answer

I can totally understand, but I guess it is still evolving.

Mathew Lederman · Answer

@Anandhi Arumugam _Cprime_ appreciate the response, but unfortunately doesn't help. We have an integration with our HR system that creates JSM issues via the API for terminations. Part of that process is to add managers as Request Participants so they can fill out the necessary information.

If I can define the Raise On Behalf Of user and user-picker custom field users by email address, why is Request Participants different?

I can't ask our integration team to literally double their effort for every termination simply because Atlassian decided to be lazy about how it handled a specific field. This means I'm stuck creating a duplicate user-picker custom field and then automation to pass our RequestParticipantsCustomField into RequestParticipants so our teams don't have to overcome Atlassian's shortsightedness.

And this is how we end up with an instance of 5000 users with 6000 custom fields.

Sorry @Anandhi Arumugam _Cprime_ not upset with you, just really frustrated with how bad the Cloud version is compared to DC.

Anandhi Arumugam _Cprime_ · Answer

Hi @Mathew Lederman I have tried to use email address, but unfortunately only account IDs are accepted. But you can feed the email address and get the account IDs by using the End Point below.

/rest/api/3/user/search?query=<email_address>

This API returns a JSON with the user's account ID and you can parse to get this information. Hope this helps!