Watching and Voting on an Issue
JIRA allows you to vote for a particular issue — "voicing" your preference for that issue to be resolved or completed.
JIRA also allows you to watch a particular issue, signing up for notifications of any updates relating to that issue (provided an appropriate notification scheme has been set up for the project by your JIRA administrator).
If you have the correct permissions (see below), you can also view the voter and watcher lists for an issue and, you can manage the watcher list — that is, add other people to the watcher list. This is useful if you need to draw someone's attention to a particular issue.
On this page:
The voter and watcher lists are shown in at the right of the screen when viewing an issue:
Issue voting
To vote for an issue:
- Search for or view the issue you want to vote on and access its 'view issue' page.
- Click Vote for this issue to instantly vote for the issue.
At any subsequent time when logged in, click this again to remove your vote.
To view a list of people who have already voted on an issue:
- Search for or view the issue you want to vote on and access its 'view issue' page.
- Click the number of votes to view the list of people who have voted for the issue.
Issue watching
To watch an issue:
- Search for or view the issue you want to watch and access its 'view issue' page.
- Click Start watching this issue to instantly become a watcher of the issue. At any subsequent time when logged in, click this again to stop watching the issue.
To view existing users of, add new users to or remove existing users from an issue:
- Search for or view the issue you want to watch and access its 'view issue' page.
- Do either of the following:
- Click the number of watchers to open the Add Watchers popup.
- Select More Actions > Watchers to open the Watchers page.
Keyboard shortcut: '.' + start typing watchers
- Click the number of watchers to open the Add Watchers popup.
- Use the Add Watchers popup or Watchers page to:
- View the list of existing users who are watching the issue,
- Add users as new watchers of the issue or
- Remove existing watchers.
Tips:- If you have the optional global permissions (below), an autocompleted list of users appears as you begin typing a username or full name in either the Add Watchers popup (or Add Watchers field on the Watchers page), from which you can select a user via your keyboard's cursor keys.
- When using the Add Watchers popup, you can remove an existing watcher from an issue by moving your mouse pointer over their name and clicking the 'bin' icon that appears to the right of their name.
- When using the Watchers page, if you have the optional global permissions, click the 'user-picker' icon to open the User Picker popup, from which you can select users.
Permissions
Mandatory project permissions
JIRA incorporates the following project permissions to govern who may view/edit the voter and watcher lists:
- View Voters and Watchers — permits a user to view both the voter and watcher lists
- Manage Watcher List — permits a user to view/edit the watcher list.
These project permissions are granted by your JIRA administrator, through a Permission Scheme.
Optional global permissions
When adding watchers to an issue, to access:
- An autocompleted list of users in the Add Watchers popup, or
- The User Picker popup on the Watchers page,
your JIRA administrator must have granted you the Browse Users Global Permission. If you do not have this permission, however, you can still add users by specifying their usernames in either:
- The Add Watchers popup or
- The Add Watchers field on the Watchers page.
On top of this, your JIRA administrator must also ensure that JIRA's Allow users to vote on issues setting has not been switched off. (See Configuring JIRA Options for more information.)
Please note: It is not possible to edit the voter list.