Add watchers to an issue while creating it

[#1]

Hello Community

We’ve been working hard to improve the issue creation process by implementing the ability to add watchers to an issue while you’re creating it!

This feature is rolling out slowly while we gather feedback to help us improve the experience, so you might not see it in your project straight away. You can expect to see it over the next few weeks. Customers on release tracks will see it sometime in the next month.

1. Watcher icon

How to use the new add watchers feature

While you’re creating an issue, you should see a watcher icon 👁️ at the top of your issue create form. You’ll only see this icon if: 

• watchers are enabled for Jira.

• you have permission to manage watchers in that project.

If you have auto-watch enabled, you’ll see the icon highlighted in blue while you’re create a new issue.

Adding watchers

If you have permission to manage watchers in the selected project, you can add any watchers that have access to that project. Just select the watcher icon 👁️ and search for a name, and pick a name from the list.

If you change the selected project after you’ve added watchers, you'll still see all the watchers you added (provided you have manage watchers permissions in the newly selected project). However, after you hit Create, only the people with access to the project will be added to the issue as a watcher. We’ll let you know if any watchers weren’t successfully added to an issue.

You can check all the watchers were successfully added to the issue by viewing the issue after creating it.

[Peter Heidorn]

I love this feature. Def nice to have.

[Sascha Haberlandt]

Very, very welcome! I'm looking forward to this feature, already requested by our team.

[Tom Miller]

Any chance to get it added to the Jira Settings Detail page?  I have a manager that wants to be a watcher on every ticket. This would make it completely automated.

[Raj Vora]

Does anyone know how to:

A.  Find out which JIRA versions this has already been rolled out to

and

B.  Get this feature incorporated into your environment (is it through an automatic update or can it be manually installed?)

[Sascha Haberlandt]

@Raj Vora : this feature is available in our account since 2 weeks and is working well.

No installation required, it's simply active and usable. 

[Raj Vora]

@Jamen Huang  :  I'm just catching this now, but in the tags section above it only lists JIRA cloud. Is this feature being rolled out ONLY in cloud or server as well?  Thanks.

@Sascha Haberlandt :   I assume you are running Cloud, correct?

[Sascha Haberlandt]

@[deleted] yes, i forgot to mention it - we are running JIRA Cloud.

[Neha Rana]

Is this feature working for only Jira Service management license? Because we are using Jira software and Jira work management licenses too and the add watcher eyeball icon is not visible in other two cases. Only people who have Jira service management license can view the watcher icon while creating issue.

[Jamen Huang]

Hi @neha , Thanks for asking. This feature isn't just working for Jira Service Management projects. But to use this feature, please make sure you have the permission to manage watchers in the selected project. Thank you.

[Jamen Huang]

Hi @Raj Vora , thanks for asking. And yes, this is a cloud-only feature.

[Neha Rana]

Thanks Jamen, Do users need to assume any role to manage watchers ? Because i am Jira admin and i can add watchers while issue creation but only people who hold Jira service management license can add watchers while issue creation others can't. But you confirmed that it is not related to license. What could it be?

[Neha Rana]

Your help is really appreciated!

[Armin Guldalian]

It seems that you can only add watchers that are part of a particular project while creating, but if you use the Add Watchers field after creating the issue you can add anyone from the organization - is there a setting I am missing or is this intended?

[Andrea_Lawrence]

Can watchers be added when creating an issue via REST API calls?

[Nick Van Maele]

Thanks for posting.
How do I add watchers?
I see the watchers icon, but there is no "add" option anywhere?
Does this require special privileges?