Understanding watchers and request participants in JSM Cloud

Summary

Request participants and watchers are different ways for users to access and follow work. Request participants to apply only to JSM projects and access tickets through the portal. Watchers apply to both JSM and Jira projects and are licensed users with access to the Jira project and internal agent view.

Solution

Request Participants

Request participants use the portal. Request participants are usually customers who are unlicensed users. They can view and participate through the portal, view and add public comments, and access tickets where they are participants through Where I am a participant in the Requests section of the portal.

• 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.

• Request participants can also:

  • 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.

Watchers

Watchers have project access. A watcher is a licensed user who has permission for the Jira project. Because watchers have access to the internal agent view, they can view and add both internal and public comments. A user with the Manage Watchers permission can add a watcher, and a watcher can stop watching the ticket themselves.

• Watchers can also:

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

  • 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