Troubleshooting why some Jira users get automatically assigned issues

Summary

Some Jira users might be automatically assigned to Jira issuers without knowing how this happened. The purpose of this article is to list some of the most common reasons why a user might be automatically assigned to an issue, and how to identify each of them.

Environment

Jira Server/Data Center on any version from 8.0.0.

Diagnosis

To figure out which of the root cause listed below might be relevant, follow the steps below:

• Go to the project admin page of the project the issue belongs to

  • Go to the page Project Settings > Users and roles

    • Check the Default Assignee setting

    • If it is set to a value, then Root Cause 1 might be relevant

  • Go to the page Project Settings > Components

    • If there is a component configured with a Default Assignee, then Root Cause 2 might be relevant

  • Go to the page Project Settings > Automation

    • Check each automation rule configured in this page

    • Look for an automation rule that is using the Assign issue action

    • If you find one, then check the Audit Logs from this rule and check if the rule was executed for the impacted issue

      

    • The Root Cause 5 might be relevant in this case

  • Go to the page Project Settings > Workflows

    • Click on the workflow that is associated to the issue type the issue belongs to

    • Check each transition and look at their post-functions

    • Check if there is any post-function (coming from Jira or 3rd party add-ons) that is automatically assigning issues

    • If you find any, the Root Cause 4 and Root Cause 6 might be relevant

  • Open the Jira issue that got automatically assigned

    • Click on the History tab and scroll down to the time when the issue was unexpectedly assigned

    • If you don't find any entry showing that the assignee field was updated

      • Then this is an indication that the assignee was set at the issue creation time

      • It could be due to project configurations, or to a post-function configured for the very 1st transition in the workflow

      • In this case, the Root Causes 2, 3, 4, 6 might be relevant

    • If you see that a generic user (such as "bot", or "automation user") updated the assigned field as illustrated below:

      

      • In this case, Root Causes 5,6,7 might be relevant

    • If you see that the user assigned the issue to themselves, but they don't recall doing it, as illustrated below:

      • In this case, it is possible that the user accidentally hit the shortcut "a", which automatically self-assign issues

        

      • More information about this behavior in Root Cause 1

• For Jira Service Management projects only:

  • Go to the page Project Settings > Legacy Automation

    • Check each automation rule configured in this page

    • Look for an automation rule that is using using the Edit Issue action, along with the Assignee Field

    • If you find one, then check the Audit Logs from this rule and check if the rule was executed for the impacted issue

      

    • The Root Cause 7 might be relevant in this case

  • Take note of the Request Type the automatically assigned issue belongs to

    • Go to the page Project Settings > Request Types

    • Click on the Edit Fields link next to the Request Type

    • Go to the "Hidden Fields" section and check if you see the Assignee field listed there

    • If you do, then the Root Cause 8 might be relevant

• Schedule some maintenance window, and enter Jira Plugin Safe mode as per Disabling and enabling apps.

  • If you notice that Jira issues no longer get automatically assigned, then it is an indication that a 3rd party add-on was causing this behavior

  • In such case, the Root Cause 6 is relevant

  • To identify which 3rd party add-on is causing this behavior, you might re-enable each add-on 1 by 1, until the behavior goes away

• Check the Tomcat Access logs from the day the issue was assigned

  • Look for the URL /rest/api/2/issue/<ISSUE_KEY_OR_ID>/assignee after replacing <ISSUE_KEY_OR_ID> with the impacted issue key or ID

  • If you see an entry, then Root Cause 9 is relevant

Root Causes

Root Cause 1 - A user accidentally auto-assigned an issue to themselves via the "a" key

By default, Jira's keyboard shortcuts are enabled for all users. When an issue is opened via the "View Issue" page, if a user accidentally hit the "a" key, this issue will be automatically assigned to them. This is because the "a" key is a shortcut to automatically self assign issues.

To disable keyboard shorts at the user level or at the global level, please check the KB article How to disable shortcuts in Jira.

Root Cause 2 - The project is configured so that all new issues are assigned to the project lead

It is possible to configure a Jira project, so that any newly created issue is automatically assigned to the Project Lead.

This configuration is done at the Project Admin level, via the page Project Settings > Users and roles, as illustrated below:

Root Cause 3 - The project is configured with components configured with a default assignee

It is possible to configure components in Jira projects so that Jira issues are automatically assigned as soon as they are created.

This configuration is done at the Project Admin level, via the page Project Settings > Components.

In the example below, we can see that the Component A is configured so that any issue created with this component will be assigned to the Project Lead (which is configured via the page Project Settings > Users and roles):

Root Cause 4 - One of the workflow transition is configured with a native Jira post-function that auto-assigns the issue

It is possible to configure a workflow transition so that when a user transition an issue to specific status, the issue gets automatically assigned.

You can refer to the KB articles below that shows examples of post-functions that can be used for automatic assignment:

• Automatically assign an issue based on Issue Type in Jira server

• How to automatically self assign a Jira issue during a transition

Root Cause 5 - A rule using Automation For Jira is configured to automatically assign issues

From Jira Data Center version 9.0.0, Automation For Jira is automatically bundled with Jira. This application provides the ability to configure automation rules that will perform various actions, such as assigning issues based on some conditions.

You can refer to this automation rule template which shows an example of such rule. ℹ️ Note that even though this template was created for Jira Cloud, the suggested configuration from this template also works with Data Center.

The screenshot below illustrates an example rule that automatically assign issues:

Root Cause 6 - There is a script/automation/post-function coming from a 3rd party add-on configured to assign Jira issues

There is a lot of 3rd party add-on on the Atlassian Marketplace which provide the ability to automatically assign a Jira issue via a script/automation/post-function, including but not limited to:

• ScriptRunner For Jira

• Jira Workflow Toolbox

• JSU Automation Suite for Jira Workflows

Root Cause 7 - The issue is from a JSM project and there is a legacy automation rule configured to automatically assign issues

Since Automation For Jira got bundled with Jira versions 9.x, the automation module coming from JSM (Jira Service Management) has become deprecated and is now referred to as Legacy Automations.

Even though this automation module is no longer supported, it is still possible to configure rules using this module in JSM projects, via the page Project Settings > Legacy Automation.

The screenshot below illustrates an example rule that automatically assign issues:

Root Cause 8 - The issue is from a JSM project and a request type is configured with a preset value for the assignee field

In Jira Service Management (JSM) projects, request types can be configured with hidden fields that have preset values via the page Project Settings > Email Requests, as illustrated in the screenshot below:

If this automatic assignment is a problem, you can remove this field from the Request Type configuration.

Root Cause 9 - There was a call made by the Jira REST API to assign the issue

It is possible to assign Jira issues using the end point below from the Jira REST API:

For more information about this end point, you can refer to the Jira REST API documentation.

To find more information about where this REST API call came from, you might check the Tomcat Access logs from the day the issue was assigned, search for the call API, and look at the user and IP address associated to that call.