How can I mention a user in the comment field?

[Hendrik Hess]

Hello,
I can only mention the creator and the editor in the comment area of a ticket. How can I mention another user that was created via AD Sync? Jira Service Desk does not find any additional users when I use the @User function.

[Thorsten Letschert _Decadis AG_ · Accepted solution]

Hi @Hendrik Hess ,

is the user you're about to mention

• a customer/external user without a Jira license or
• an internal user with a Jira license?

In general, Jira only offers users who are actually permitted to see the current issue within the comment field. That said, the user has to have the Browse projects permission for the issue of interest. Either by

• having this permission in general (mostly the case of your internal users or agents) or
• being the creator of the issue or part of the request participants

However, as far as I remember the whole thing about mentioning users is actually only working for the licensed users. That said, (external) customers can't be addressed directly but only via the Public comment added notification.

Cheers
Thorsten

[Hendrik Hess]

Hi @Thorsten Letschert _Decadis AG_ ,

thanks for your reply. Since we have only the 3 Agents license, all our users are only customers.

So I guess there is no possibility to mention customers without a license in the comment section as long the are not the creator or request participant.

Thanks for the clarification.

Cheers

Hendrik

[Fahad Siddiqui]

@Hendrik Hess can you clarify more on your question.

[Hendrik Hess]

When a user creates a ticket, only the creator and the editor are displayed in the comment field in mention function. I cannot mention any other user in this comment. It is simply not offered to me.
I have a license with 3 agents and synchronize all users via AD Sync.

[Fahad Siddiqui]

@Hendrik Hess were you want to display the information? on customer portal or for support team members?

[Hendrik Hess]

I would like to mention customers in the comment section of the tickets. This is the Agent view, not the customer portal.

We have a user called Benjamin, but i can't mention him, as long as he is not the creator of this ticket.

[Petter Gonçalves]

Hello @Hendrik Hess

Thank you for reaching out.

Can you confirm if the users you are trying to mention are added as request participants or the issue is shared with an organization? At least one of these actions is required to share your request with anyone and properly mention them:

Adding request participants 

If you properly did it, you might be facing the behavior reported in the feature request below:

Unable to @mention Customer or Request Participant 

To properly work around this behavior, try one of the following options:

1. Add them manually using markup and Service Desk will notify them as if you had used the normal @mention method:

   [~username]
   

2. Have the participant make a comment, and he will be mention-able after that.

Additionally, feel free to vote and watch the feature request to increase its priority and also receive notifications about any updates.

Let us know if you have any questions.

[Hendrik Hess]

Hello @Petter Gonçalves 

The behavior you describe is exactly what I noticed with our Jira.

Unfortunately the user I mention via workaround [~user] does not get an email as notification.

I also know of another Jira installation where every user can be mentioned in the comment field.

So is this bug only present on some Jira installations?

[Hendrik Hess]

Hello @Petter Gonçalves

I just found out that if I give a user administrator rights, I can mention him. Do you know which rights are responsible for the mentioning?

[Petter Gonçalves]

Hello @Hendrik Hess

Thank you for your details.

No administration rights are required for a customer in order to be mentioned in Jira. They only must be able to access the request (Browse Projects), however, it seems that the user you are talking about is not a customer as stated before, but a Service Desk Agent. This is a completely different scenario when talking about notifications, as explained in the documentation below:

Jira Service Desk: Agents, Customers, and Roles 

Can you please confirm if the user is an Agent able to access the request using the internal UI?

Also, I have some questions about the last details you provided:

About this sentence:

Unfortunately the user I mention via workaround [~user] does not get an email as notification.

So you were able to mention the user, however, he did not receive the notification. Is that correct?

If the user is an agent, he must be facing the behavior mentioned below:

I would like my Service Desk agent to receive JIRA notification even if they are a request participant/reporter/part of Organization 

The behavior mentioned above is not a bug but a feature of Jira Service desk. Explaining better, the request participant field was created to share the ticket with other customers, not agents. 

If you want your agents to receive notifications, they should be added as watchers and not request participants. Also, they must have permission to browse projects in order to receive notifications.

About this sentence:

I just found out that if I give a user administrator rights, I can mention him. Do you know which rights are responsible for the mentioning?

By the previous answer provided, you were able to mention the user even before the adding of administration rights by using the [~user] workaround. Is that correct?

Did the user receive the notification when you added him with administration rights? Can you provide us what was the difference before and after you added the user with administration rights?

[Hendrik Hess]

Hello @Petter Gonçalves

I had given this one customer administrator rights to test the behavior.

I played through all possible scenarios with this customer again: I got the following result:

• If the user I want to mention is only a customer, I can mention him in a comment with the workaround [~user]. However, it is not displayed when I enter @user. He will not be notified when I mention him.
• If the user I want to mention is a service desk user, I have noticed the same behavior as with a customer.
• If the user I want to mention is a Jira administrator, I can mention him/her directly with @user and he/she will also receive a notification.
• If I add the user as a request participant he will be notified every time I add a new public comment.
• I cannot add the user to the watch list because the user does not have permission to do so.

Do these tests help to narrow down the problem?