How to Sync Watchers Field in Jira On-premise

This article provides description and scripts that help you to synchronize issue watchers and create new users if they do not exist on the destination side.

Watchers field is one of the standard fields of an issue. You can synchronize it as any other issue fields. Exalate has a helper method to create users with no permissions. Use this method to sync the watchers list. For more information, please read watchers issue field.

Source Side

 Outgoing sync

Send watchers

 replica.watchers = issue.watchers

Destination Side (Jira on-premise)

Add the code below to the Incoming sync to create users if they don't exist on the receiving side.

// WATCHERS SYNC
issue.watchers = replica.watchers.each { w ->
    def _localW = nodeHelper.getUserByEmail(w.email)
    if (_localW == null) {
        // We create a user with no permissions, and with randomly generated password
        return nodeHelper.createUser(
            w.username,
            scala.util.Random$.MODULE$.alphanumeric().take(12).mkString(), 
            w.email, 
            w.displayName
        )
    }
    _localW
}
// END: WATCHERS SYNC 

Destination Side (Jira Cloud)

There's no API on Jira Cloud to create users if they don't exist. Exalate can lookup local users in different ways:

• by email, if the user email is not hidden in the Atlassian account settings
• by user accountID if the user email is hidden in the Atlassian account settings

Incoming sync

// WATCHERS SYNC
def localWatchers = []
replica.watchers.each { w ->
    def _localW = nodeHelper.getUserByEmail(w.email)
    if (_localW != null) {
        localWatchers << _localW  // Add to the local watchers list if the user exists
    }
}
issue.watchers = localWatchers
// END: WATCHERS SYNC