How does the user picker work in Jira applications

Summary

Jira applications use the user picker for selecting assignees, reporters, and custom users or groups. The user picker uses AJAX to provide suggestions as you type. Explore how the user picker operates behind the scenes to enhance your Jira experience.

Solution

How does the Jira application user picker work?

1. The user picker first determines the group via Project > Role > Group (for example, it determines that the assignable users for project X are the users in role Y and, therefore, the users in group Z).

2. This fires a REST call on every keystroke, depending on how fast the characters are entered.

3. It uses the configured User Directories (AD, Crowd, etc.) to get a list of users who belong to group Z.

4. Matches the entered characters with the username, email address, and display name.

5. The User Picker's auto-suggest feature requires the Browse User's Global Permissions to work. Without this permission, users would only be able to specifically add exact usernames.

Can you change the REST call interval?

The system waits 75 milliseconds after each character before making a request, and this can't be changed. If you enter another character within 75 milliseconds, the timer restarts. In other words, if you type the name quickly, it won't search until the full name has been entered. To ensure a single REST call, type the username elsewhere and paste it into the field.

Can the user picker field cause performance issues?

It's possible that this could cause performance problems in some particular circumstances. There are two potential problems:

• If the Jira instance has multiple User Directories, searching for the members of a group could be slow.

Solution: Reduce the number of User Directories and/or move the User Directory containing the requested group to the top of the preference chain.

• If the project has a very broad assignable group (for example, all the users in a Jira application are potentially assignable, but only a few of them are actually assigned), retrieving the list of users and matching the characters could be expensive.

Solution: Create a smaller assignable group. It is better to add users when needed than to add lots of Jira application users who never get an issue assigned.