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Watchers

Backbone has two options for synchronizing the 'watchers' field.

  • If the synchronized projects are in Jira systems with the same user base, you can synchronize the watchers field to another watchers field
  • If the synchronized projects have different user bases, synchronize the watchers field to a text string

Changes on watchers will only get synced once another field of the issue has been changed too, as adding/removing watchers isn't shown in the issue history. We want to improve this behavior so that it will always be synced directly. Please watch or vote for BAC-1326 to make this possible.


Watchers to watchers

What does it do?

Synchronize the watchers in the 'watchers' field between synchronized issues.

How do I use it?

You should only use this option if the synchronized Jira instances have the same user bases, otherwise the non-existing synchronized users will not be recognized in the partner project, causing an error.

Simply synchronize the 'watchers' field to the 'watchers' field in the Backbone configuration.

What are the mapping options?

There are two options available to synchronize the Watchers field:

  • Passthrough Mapping (by username), which maps each user in the watchers field to a user in the partner project with the same username. 
  • Passthrough Mapping (by email), which maps each user in the watchers field to a user in the partner project with the same email address.

Which mapping should I use?

If you are synchronizing between Jira Server and Jira Cloud, we recommend to use the Watchers Passthrough Mapping (by email) because Atlassian has removed usernames from Jira Cloud. For Jira Server to Jira Server synchronizations the Watchers Passthrough Mapping (by username) is sufficient in most of the cases.

Synchronize watchers base on their usernames

To synchronize each user in the watchers field with a user in the partner project base on the username, select the Passthrough Mapping (by username) option:

If the same user does not exist in the partner project, Backbone will throw an error.

Synchronize watchers base on their emails

To synchronize each user in the watchers field with a user in the partner project base on the emails, select the Passthrough Mapping (by email) option:

If a user with the same email does not exist in the partner project, Backbone will throw an error. In order to avoid this, you can select to Ignore non-existing users –– whenever a user from the watchers list does match any user in the partner project, it will be ignore and the synchronization continues.

In order to use this field mapping for synchronizations between Jira Server to Jira Cloud or Jira Cloud to Jira Cloud, please make sure that your users are sharing their email address with apps. Each user can change this setting in their profile and visibility settings of their Atlassian account.


Watchers to string

What does it do?

The Watchers to String option lets you map a watchers field to a custom field of type text.

How do I use it?

You must map the watchers field to a text field. The mapping can only be unidirectional, because Backbone doesn't support parsing the text field from the other instance.

In the field mapping configuration, you can enter the text format in the Custom User Template text box:

You can use the following placeholders in the text format:

${watcher.displayName}
the watcher's JIRA display name
${watcher.name}
the watcher's JIRA log-in name
${watcher.emailAddress}
the email address associated with the watcher's JIRA account
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