Auto-Add Watchers When User Is Mentioned

[#1]

Summary

This article is being used to demonstrate how to automatically add Watchers to Jira Issues when a User is mentioned in a comment, using Automation.

Please note that you can make this Rule either a Single Project, Multiple Project, Project Type, or a Global Automation Rule, depending on your preference. But bear in mind our: Best Practices for Optimizing Automation Rules 

Setup

Configure your Automation Rule Trigger to run on the Comment Types that you prefer the @mentioned Users to be added as a Watcher on. I configured my Automation Rule Trigger to Trigger on All comments.

Then, Create a Variable Automation Action that will use any variable name, with the Smart Value field as: 

{{issue.comments.last.body.split(" ").match("(accountid:.*)]").remove("accountid:")}}

This will look like the following in the Rule, right after the Rule Trigger:

After that, we will want to configure an Advanced Compare Condition. This will look at the First Value of the Variable Name that you created and evaluate if there are no watchers on the comment action. In my case that is {{addwatchers}}. That said, if there are no mentions in the comment, then the Rule does not run the Action. If it does, it will execute the Action in the Rule Next. Here is a screenshot of the Advanced Compare Condition:

Lastly, we will configure the Add Watchers Automation Action, using the {{addwatchers}} Smart Value:

This will all look like the following in the Automation Rule Flow:

I hope this helps!

-Christian B.

Relevant Documentation:

• Best Practices for Optimizing Automation Rules 
• FEATURE REQUEST FOR THIS AUTOMATED ABILITY: @mentions on comments make the mentioned user a watcher 

[Laurie Sciutti]

Great article, @Christian Beaulieu !

[Lexi White]

This is awesome! Just implemented this automation into our project. 

I also wanted to create an additional automation that applies to Descriptions, but it doesn't seem to work. I'm new to Automation, so maybe there's something simple I'm missing? 

[Omri Zeman]

Hey its work for me also, but its work only when you tag one user only, if i wanna make it also when you tag in the comment multiply users what I need to change? :)

[Susan Hauth _Jira Queen_]

Hi @Omri Zeman 

I just tested it and it adds all the mentioned users.  I did drop the comparison step because it doesn't fail or matter if the @mentioned user is already a watcher.  Maybe that makes a difference?

Thank you @Christian Beaulieu - super great little automation

Susan

[Bill Sheboy]

Hi @Omri Zeman 

What you describe may happen when there are newlines in the comment as the automation rule match() function does not consistently handle those well. 

The solution is to replace the newlines with spaces before the split():

{{issue.comments.last.body.replace("\n", " ").split(" ").match("(accountid:.*)]").remove("accountid:")}}

Kind regards,
Bill

[Omri Zeman]

Thanks @Bill Sheboy  work now :)