Understanding watchers and request participants in JSM Cloud

Summary

In this article, we will attempt to explain the differences between watchers and request participants to facilitate better understanding.

Solution

Request Participants

• This field usually includes customers, who are unlicensed users who can view tickets in the portal only and don't have access to the internal agent view.

• Anyone who has access to the project can be added as a request participant and customers can add participants on the ticket through the portal as well.

• A customer can be added as a Requested Participant by using the "Share" function in the portal. There are restrictions on if/who customers can share with based upon the customer sharing settings selected in the Jira Service Management project.

• The request participants' access to view/participate would be through the portal only.

• Request participants can:

  • Be added by including the email address in the cc field when the customer replies to an email.

  • Only be removed from an issue by a user with edit issue permissions.

  • Only view and add public comments.

  • Users can access the tickets on which they are participants by using the filter 'Where I am a participant' from the Requests section in the portal.

Watchers

• A Watcher is a licensed user who will be given permission for the Jira project. The watcher field is widely used in Jira projects and is also available for use in Jira Service Management projects.

• Watchers can:

  • View and add internal comments since they have access to the internal agent view. They can also view and add public comments.

  • Be added by any user with a Manage Watchers permission.

  • Stop watching the ticket by themselves and such a user does not need to be removed by someone else.

  • View all the tickets they are watching by creating and saving a filter with the JQL watcher = currentUser()

What type of notifications do they receive?

The following article may be helpful in understanding what notifications the watchers and request participants receive:

• What notifications do my customers and team receive?

Basically, in Jira Service Management:

• Request participants will receive notifications if that specific notification is enabled in the JSM project.

• Notifications to watchers are configured through the notification scheme of the project.

Useful References

• What are request participants

• Users and Roles in Jira Service Management

• Using watchers and mentions effectively