Can I send a notification to a group of users in a custom field?

[Justin Corcoran]

I'm trying to implement an approval process in JIRA. Right now, I'm going with a multi-user picker custom field, where I'll record the names of everyone approving the issue. What I'd like is to have an email sent from JIRA to the users that are mentioned in the custom field. I've set up the "approved by" field to show on a transition screen when the item transitions to "approved," so I have a transition that I can add a "fire generic event" step to. However, I don't know how to say "fire an event that notifies only the people in this custom field".

Any ideas how I can have people added to a custom field get notified to that effect? Add them as watchers? I'm looking for something similar to what happens when you @mention someone in a comment.

[Jobin Kuruvilla [Adaptavist] · Accepted solution]

You will have to create a new event and fire that event in the workflow transition instead of Generic Event.

You can then include that custom field in the notifications for the new event.

[Justin Corcoran]

Perfect, thanks so much!

[Paul Roorda]

In the worflow, we have the 'field' Approved.
Issues need to be approved by an assignee, before they can be assigned to someone who starts the work on that isse.

Looking at the History of a Ticket, you'll see:

"Name" made changes - "date/time"
Status Open [ 1 ] Approved [ 10001]

when the issue has been approved (where Name is the approver). So I guess that Jira indeed "logs" this info.

I'm trying to use these names/users (we have 2 approval fields in the workflow), so I can run an event on the listener in the workflow, to have Jira mail these Approvers that a ticket has been closed.

I have a modified notification + worflow scheme that does not send an email on every update of the issue, just on a few updates like: Approved, Assignee Changed, Resolved.

I hope this made it a little more clear?

[Justin Corcoran]

I'm not sure what you mean by "Jira looks who did approvals and filled in that field", where would JIRA be looking for that information? Are you recording somewhere else in JIRA who approves the issue, and you just want that information moved to a new custom field?

[Paul Roorda]

A little it does... I was hoping you had it automated (so no user interaction is needed), where Jira looks who did approvals and filled in that field... That's really what I'm after -> to send a notification to approvers when the issue is Resolved.
However, till that time, your solution might actually be a temp. work-around.
Thank you so much for taking time to respond and explain!

[Justin Corcoran]

When you add a new custom field, one of the options is "multi user picker". I just added that to a screen (I call it the "approve" screen) and then added that screen to the workflow transition where the issue gets marked approved. Thus, when you move the issue, you're prompted to enter the names of the people approving it. I also implemented the notification as described above (thanks to Jobin's help below) so that everyone who is recorded as approving the issue gets an email.

Does that help?

[Paul Roorda]

"I'm trying to implement an approval process in JIRA. Right now, I'm going with a multi-user picker custom field, where I'll record the names of everyone approving the issue." --> I'm trying to exactly accomplish this, but cannot figure this out... Would you mind sharing on how you did this?
I would be so greatful!