Automation for Jira: JSON Update People Custom Field

[Paul Benati]

I need to update a People custom field via Automation for Jira.  Specifically, I want my custom field ("Work It" or "customfield_10150") to be set to a specific user, "service.center".

service.center is defined as:

{

• self: "https://macstadium.atlassian.net/rest/api/2/user?accountId=5e7a27d154fa650c3bc1b488",
• accountId: "5e7a27d154fa650c3bc1b488",
• emailAddress: "service.center@macstadium.com",
• avatarUrls: {
  • 48x48: "https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/c2521f3150a27fed828662ec3cb02b9f?d=https%3A%2F%2Favatar-management--avatars.us-west-2.prod.public.atl-paas.net%2Finitials%2FS-4.png&size=48&s=48",
  • 24x24: "https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/c2521f3150a27fed828662ec3cb02b9f?d=https%3A%2F%2Favatar-management--avatars.us-west-2.prod.public.atl-paas.net%2Finitials%2FS-4.png&size=24&s=24",
  • 16x16: "https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/c2521f3150a27fed828662ec3cb02b9f?d=https%3A%2F%2Favatar-management--avatars.us-west-2.prod.public.atl-paas.net%2Finitials%2FS-4.png&size=16&s=16",
  • 32x32: "https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/c2521f3150a27fed828662ec3cb02b9f?d=https%3A%2F%2Favatar-management--avatars.us-west-2.prod.public.atl-paas.net%2Finitials%2FS-4.png&size=32&s=32"
  },
• displayName: "service.center",
• active: true,
• timeZone: "America/New_York",
• accountType: "atlassian"

}

Unfortunately, the Automation for Jira's Edit Issue action does not find my custom field, "Work It", in its dropdown.  Therefore, I need to leverage the Additional fields textbox (i.e., JSON).  In that textbox I've added:

{
    "fields": {
        "Work It" : { "id":"5e7a27d154fa650c3bc1b488" }
    }
}

When I run this automation I get the following error:

Edit issue
    Error editing issues
    SERVICE-768 (data was not an array (customfield_10150))

Note:  I have validated that "Work It" is indeed "customfield_10150"

What am I doing wrong?  Thanks!

[Alfonso Balsera · Accepted solution]

@pbrdebruijn, this error is typically because the JSON is not correct when running the rule.

For fields that take an array of single field object:

{
    "fields": {
        "Multi User Customfield": {{issue.parent.Multi User Customfield.accountId.asJsonObjectArray("id")}}
    },
}

This webiste has some examples of how to use the JSON functions to ensure your values are compiled correctly: https://support.atlassian.com/jira-software-cloud/docs/advanced-field-editing-json/

This is where the function details are: https://support.atlassian.com/jira-software-cloud/docs/smart-values-json-functions/

[Paul Benati]

Thanks for the response.  I was able to solve this need leveraging the array syntax even though this user field is single user constrained.  The working JSON is:

{
     "fields": {
          "Work It" : [ { "accountId":"5e7a27d154fac50c3bc1b488" } ]
     } 
}

[Marc Isikoff]

That is odd that it works; I have a similar issue with single entry people picker but I am assigning the value (what Paul has as "5e7a..." from a text field (custom):

{
      "fields" : {
             "Work It" : [{"Username" : "{{issue.customfield_123456.value}}" }]
      }
}

And this gets (if [ ] are surrounding): "data was not an object (Work It))"

If I remove the [ ] it gets success but does not update Work it.