JQL search using WAS operator and BY predicates does not auto populate username based on string

Issue Summary

When searching JQL using the WAS operator it is possible to easily construct a JQL query to see which user made a specific change.
For example, if you wanted to know if user jsmith changed the status of an issue to done, you could find these with:

status WAS Done BY jsmith 

However the problem here is that the issue navigator in Jira Server will not attempt to autocomplete the username based on the input here. This feels inconsistent with the behavior that is displayed for assignee or reporter fields. When you search those fields, the issue navigator will attempt to search for users that match that string in some way.

The same problem occurs when using the CHANGED BY operator.

Steps to Reproduce

1. In the issue navigator attempt to type out a search such as

   status WAS Done BY jsmit
   

Expected Results

When typing this out, we would expect that Jira would show you a list of any users that match that string of 'jsmit' so far and let you select one.

Actual Results

• The Issue Navigator does not offer any possible suggestion based on the input string here.
• This makes it very difficult for Jira users to utilize JQL in order to quickly and easily find these issues that were changed by a specific individual.

Workaround

It is possible to instead use the Account ID of the user and use that to query in JQL. However, you have to do some other work first to find this value, which feels overly tedious. You can find this in a few different ways:

1. You can run a different JQL query first such as

   reporter='Full Name' 
   

   Which can then help you to locate that username for use in this first query.