Jira Cloud Automation: how can I get a user name from accountid?

[Mikael Kalla]

Hi,

In Jira Cloud  Automation, I've set an automation to send last comment to a custom text field "Last Comment" by using

"When: issue commented"

"Then: Edit issue" and "Last Comment" {{issue.comments.last.body}}

This works really good, except that any comment where a person is mentioned as

"@xxxx" appears in my "Last Comment" text field as the user ID, like

"[~accountid:112c123c123c123]" 

Is it possible to have Jira automation to replace this ID with the real user name? 
Or in some other way get the user name from the "@xxx" in the comment?

[Prince Nyeche · Accepted solution]

Hi @Mikael Kalla 

Usernames are deprecated on Cloud, so don't even bother searching for it. Instead you can use Display Name, if you're trying to show some form of string to identify a user. Try the below example and let me know if that's what you're looking for?

{{#issue.comments.last}}
Comment by: {{author.displayName}} 
{{body}}
{{/}}

[Mikael Kalla]

Hi Prince,

Thanks, I know about user names are deprecated, I just want the name instead of the accountid of a user mentioned in a comment.

I am not looking for the author of the comment.

Example, I write a comment like: "@Mikael what is the status......."

Then I want as result in my custom text field: "Mikael what is the status..."

But I get "[~accountid:112c123c123c123] what is the status...."

[Prince Nyeche]

Unfortunately, I don't think that you can retrieve such information with Automation. However if your custom field is a multi-line text field with wiki style renderer enabled on the Field configuration, it will render the user on the custom field as you've highlighted, that's the only way possible.

[Mikael Kalla]

Would it be possible to read from the comment the [~accountid:112c123c123c123] to a custom user field, and have that to show the name of the mentioned user?

If so, how to remove all text before and after the [~accountid:112c123c123c123], otherwise the automation will fail.

And how would the Jira Cloud automation script look like?

[Prince Nyeche]

Thinking about this, my thought goes to using the match() but i'm not certain you can strip the entire string (left and right side) out leaving only the accountId.

[Mikael Kalla]

I managed to solve the extraction of the account id by using "substring" and look for 
"id:" and "]" in the comments field

{
"fields": {
"LastUserCommented": {"id": "{{issue.comments.last.body.substringBetween("id:","]")}}" }
}
}

So a comment like  "How are you @Mikael ?"

(which actually is "How are you [~accountid:123c123c123c123c...] ?")

Sends the user id of Mikael (123c123c123c123c..) to the "LastUserCommented" field (custom single user field) and there appears as "Mikael"

Then I can have a filter showing that column

[Prince Nyeche]

Great glad to hear that. Nice workaround.

[Mikael Kalla]

Thanks, have a nice weekend!

[Demetris Karacostas]

@Mikael Kalla isn't using {{issue.comment.last.body.text}} much easier than extracting the user ID?

This should allow to have the display name of the user instead of the user ID value.

[Scott Adams]

@Demetris Karacostas Exactly what I needed. Thank you!

[Demetris Karacostas]

@Scott Adams glad this helped!

[Demetris Karacostas]

Hello,

If you would like the body of the last comment with the name of the user instead of the userid when the user is mentioned, you could use the below:

{{issue.comment.last.body.text}}

Thanks!

Reference:

https://community.atlassian.com/t5/Marketplace-Apps-Integrations/Can-we-include-display-name-of-user-mentioned-in-a-comment-in/qaq-p/1170054

[Slava Gefen]

Hey @Demetris Karacostas you saved my day 👏

I almost started to write an advanced branching {{smart-value}} and logic to make this replacement 🙃

With kind regards
Slava