Reporters and Watchers not receiving email notifications

[Gregory Costa]

I've reviewed other questions within the community but didn't see any resolutions to the issue. 

This user is a Project Admin and has created an automation rule that specified users (who has administrator roles) can be automatically assign as watchers to issues created (among other events) within their Project. The issue is that the reporter of that ticket (who is auto assign as a watcher) does not get an email notification.

I've verified their personal settings. They have the default checks to send email notifications if you are watching the issue, as a reporter, assignee and if someone mentions the user. 

Our default permission and notification schemes supports the user to get notified yet they don't receive the email.

As an Org / Site Administrator, I decided to test this on my own project. I created an issue with no one assigned. I did not receive an email as a reporter nor as a watcher (we have watcher auto assignment).  I assigned a user to the issue and that user received an email notification. I manually assigned a watcher to the ticket and that user received the email notification. 

Can you please explain why the one who created the issue did not receive an email notification as a reporter and a watcher? 

[Gregory Costa]

HI @Trudy Claspill , 

Thank you for the quick response. Yes, I've already used the Notification Helper. Jira is configured to send emails per our default notification scheme and the default personal settings. We also have auto watch own issues enabled. 

Jira Notification Helper:

User - User X who is a project admin and not the reporter

Issue (created by another user who has administrator role)

Notification event

Issue Created

Response is User X receives notifications for the 'issue Created' event

Status                                 Summary           Details

Green checkmark      Issue Watchers         User X is watching the issue listed above

Jira Notification Helper:

User - User Y and who is the reporter and the watcher

Issue (created by User Y)

Notification event

Issue Created

Response is User X receives notifications for the 'issue Created' event

Status                                 Summary           Details

Green checkmark      Issue Watchers         User Y is watching the issue listed above

Green checkmark      Reporter                    User Y is the reporter

Green checkmark      Current Assignee      User Y is the current assignee

The actor in the automation rule is the 'user' called Automation for Jira. That is the default rule actor.

 

[Trudy Claspill]

Hello @Gregory Costa 

Welcome to the Atlassian community!

Have you tried using the Notification Helper to debug this situation? With it you specify an event, a user, and an existing issue. Jira will tell you if it is configured to send an email in that situation and will give you information about how the configuration does or does not support sending that user and email.

https://support.atlassian.com/jira-cloud-administration/docs/use-the-jira-admin-helper/

If you could use that and share the output with us, that will help us debug your issue.

Also, in the Automation Rule who is listed in the Rule details as the Actor for the rule?

[Gregory Costa]

HI @Trudy Claspill , 

Thank you for the quick response. Yes, I've already used the Notification Helper. Jira is configured to send emails per our default notification scheme and the default personal settings. We also have auto watch own issues enabled. 

Jira Notification Helper:

User - User X who is a project admin and not the reporter

Issue (created by another user who has administrator role)

Notification event

Issue Created

Response is User X receives notifications for the 'issue Created' event

Status                                 Summary           Details

Green checkmark      Issue Watchers         User X is watching the issue listed above

Jira Notification Helper:

User - User Y and who is the reporter and the watcher

Issue (created by User Y)

Notification event

Issue Created

Response is User X receives notifications for the 'issue Created' event

Status                                 Summary           Details

Green checkmark      Issue Watchers         User Y is watching the issue listed above

Green checkmark      Reporter                    User Y is the reporter

Green checkmark      Current Assignee      User Y is the current assignee

The actor in the automation rule is the 'user' called Automation for Jira. That is the default rule actor. 

[Trudy Claspill]

Thank you for that additional information.

I want to make sure I understand the scenario.

I think you are saying that Watchers are being added but not notified of issue creation.

Watchers cannot be added until the creation of the issue is completed. You may notice that you can't add a Watchers field to the Create Issues screen. Because Watchers cannot be added to an issue until after the issue creation is complete, you cannot effectively use Watchers as a method to notify users about new issue creation.

If there are other events for which you think the Watchers should be getting notifications, or another user should be getting notification, but they are not, let us explore that in more detail.

[Gregory Costa]

@Trudy Claspill ,

Atlassian does provide the ability to add watchers upon issue creation. By default for our organization, the reporter is automatically added as a watcher. Furthermore, the default notification scheme allows All watchers, current assignees and Reporter to be notified of several events, to include 'Issue Created.' How is it possible that a default notification scheme and an automated rule for assigning watchers to a ticket when issue is created does not do what its asking to do. 

[Trudy Claspill]

I wrote a long response as I was working through some test scenarios. That ultimately led me to realizing I needed to ask you a follow up question.

Does the Reporter have the "send me email for changes I make" personal setting checked or unchecked?

If they have that unchecked, then my experimentation reveals that it doesn't matter what the Notification scheme says for Issue Created. The Reporter will not receive a notification because they have elected not to receive emails for changes they make.

The Notification Helper doesn't consider a user's Personal Settings when evaluating if they should receive a notification.

Below is the long response I originally wrote, just in case you can find any new information in it.

---

I can't speak for Atlassian. I am just another user. This is my interpretation of the situation.

What I observe is that Watchers is not a field that can be added to an issue screen if you go to Settings > Issues > Screens.

And Watchers is not a field that displays in the Create Issue dialog.

In that regard, Watchers "can't" be added when creating an issue.

In Automation if you use the Create Issue action, there also Watchers is not a field that can be selected for setting.

I have not tried working around that by using the More Options and JSON.

In Automation if you use the Issue Created trigger and then an action to add Watchers, you are not actually adding the Watchers during issue creation. The trigger is triggered when the issue creation event is fired, which happens when the issue creation is completed.

I can't speak to the timing of the a person being added as a Watcher if they have in their personal settings "automatically watch issues I interact with" and if they are the Reporter of an issue.

I did some experiments:

1. Used a rule to add a Watcher where the trigger was Issue Created. The added Watcher does not receive notification.

2. Modified the notification scheme so that Issue Created was set up to notify All Watchers, but not Reporter. Set my personal settings to

- autowatch issues I interact with,

- send me email of changes I make

- send me an email for issues I am watching

- don't send me email for issues where I am the reporter

When I created an issue, I received the notification.

3. With the same modified I changed my personal settings to remove "send me email of changes I make". When I created an issue I did not receive a notification, though I was a Watcher, and I had the tick for getting email for issues I watch.

[Gregory Costa]

@Trudy Claspill thank you for the support. Some of the users I worked with claim that it had worked in the past and it stopped working for a few users. As I mentioned before, the default notification scheme gives us the ability to add watchers, reporters, and assignees. Additionally, an admin can configure the auto-assign setting to add the reporter as a watcher. This issue is not resolved for me but the users who had questions and concerns decided to not move forward in finding a resolution. 

[Joanna Praats]

I used a workaround to Publish Issue Event (Created) after adding "Add Watchers" action in automation. That way it also includes Description in the notification for watchers as otherwise when issues are created. 
1. Trigger: issue created
2. Add watchers
3. Publish issue event: issue created