How do I enforce issue reporter and issue assignee to watch their issues?

[Domi]

Hi there community,

I'm trying to get all issue reporters and issue assignees to watch their issues in my project. I've set up an automation rule but it doesn't seem to be working. 

Would you know if I've used the wrong smart rules or if it's just not possible?

Thanks,

Domi

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist- · Accepted solution]

Why are you doing this?

There's no need to make reporter or assignee into watchers, and when you do, you now have the problem that people can unwatch them.

Why do you think making them all watchers will be useful?  What problem do you have here?

[Domi]

This is mostly to help my colleagues (assignees) be accountable for their own work. They are not good yet at updating the status of their Jira issues, so by making them watch the issues they're being assigned, this will remind them to update the status.

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

But that is what the assignee field is for.  You don't need to duplicate it into watcher (and remember people can remove themselves as watchers, so you're not solving your problem this way)

You have a people problem, not a technical one.  Why are your users not being taught that "assignee = currentUser()" is what they should be looking at?