Summary

Currently, Jira Automation does not support user-picker fields in 'Edit issue' action team-managed projects. The feature request is : AUTO-421 - Better support for using Automation in Next Gen / team-managed Jira projects: bugfixes, support for custom issue types, show what project custom fields are for, display User Picker fields from Team Managed projects

The workaround is to use the Advanced fields section in Jira automation to update the Approval via an Approval field.

Environment

Cloud

Solution

This automation rule will update the approver of a ticket 

1. In the Service Project, go to Project Settings → Automation.
2. Click on Create rule
3. Set the trigger as Issue Created
4. Set the action to Edit issue
5. Click on More actions

6. In the Additional fields section, the following JSON needs to be added. 

   {
       "update": {
           "<fieldName>": [
               {
                   "add": { "accountId": "<accountID of the user to be selected>"}
               }
           ]
       }
   }

7. Here, <fieldName> = approval field name. For eg. if the approval field name = NextGen Approver, then <fieldName> = NextGen Approver

8. accountID = Account ID of the user that needs to be updated as the approver. 

   Steps to find the accountID of the user

   • Go to Settings >User Management > Users
   • Click on the required user.
   • Copy the account ID from the URL as in the screenshot
     

   

9. For the above example, the JSON will look like: 

   {
       "update": {
           "Nextgen Approver": [
               {
                   "add": { "accountId": "557058:4d5ed02e-64b3-4d73-be2b-ba2c4d9c8aa3"}
               }
           ]
       }
   }