Summary

Currently in Automation for Jira (A4J) on Jira Data Center, project administrators who are members of the group configured under Global configuration > "Allow project administrators to manage project rules" have full permission to edit and save all project-specific automation rules in their project, regardless of who is configured as the Rule Actor.

Current Behavior & Limitations

1. All-or-Nothing Rule Management: The permission model for project admins is binary—they either have full edit access to all project rules or read-only access. There is no setting to restrict project admins to only edit rules where they are the configured actor/creator.

1. Rule Copying UX: When duplicating/copying a rule, the original Rule Actor is copied over. If the user copying the rule lacks the "Impersonate users in A4J project scope" permission, they are unable to modify the actor (even to set themselves as the actor).

1. Broad Impersonation: When impersonation permissions are granted, an admin can select any user within scope, with no role-based or substitute-admin boundaries.

Suggested Improvements / Feature Requests

1. Actor-Based Edit Scoping: Provide a configuration option or permission setting allowing project administrators to only edit/modify rules where they are the configured actor/owner.

1. Default Actor on Copy: Automatically assign the user performing the copy action as the default Rule Actor on duplicated rules.

1. Granular Impersonation / Substitute Admin Model: Introduce role-based restrictions or a delegated "substitute admin" model for actor assignment and rule modifications to enhance enterprise security governance and auditability.

Business Case / Security Rationale

In enterprise environments with multiple project administrators, allowing admins to modify rules that execute under a colleague's personal identity presents a security and accountability risk. Scoping edit rights to rule authors and providing intuitive copy defaults prevents unintended rule execution under someone else's name without consent.