Merge approvals don't appear to trigger notification emails

• Zendesk ticket: https://gitlab.zendesk.com/agent/tickets/9112 and https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ee/issues/42
• Dev link: None
• GitLab version: Unknown

Expected behavior

Customer uses merge request approval flow. In cases where a merge request approver is specified the expectation is the user(s) receive a notification they have a merge request waiting.

Observed behavior

Merge request approvers do not receive notifications like assignees do.

Next steps

Estimate how much time this will take and which release we can get it in to.

cc/ @JobV

This should happen. @vsizov is this broken or not implemented? I recall seeing this issue before.

Milestone changed to 8.2

@JobV I don't know if it is implemented, but it is not too much work to fix it or implement. Something like half a day as a maximum I guess.

Thanks @vsizov.

Related to #16

@vsizov merge request !44 (merged) should trigger a notification when someone is marked as an approver. Does that also include an email notifications for when the MR is actually approved?

Great question, @patricio. Even if not, I'll report back to the user because this is what was really asked for in this request. If needed we can create another issue for the scenario you mention.

@patricio Nope, it does not include that case. /cc @dblessing

@dblessing was this promised?

@JobV No, it was not promised for 8.2

Milestone changed to 8.4

voting up this bug, very useful to know when a merge request is approved

Milestone changed to 8.6

Milestone changed to 8.7

Did this get included in 8.7??

@skel625 it looks like no one worked on a fix for this issue. I'll move it to 8.8.

Milestone changed to 8.8

Added ~113221 label

That's sad. This gets a lot of complaints from my team.

Added ~238305 label

Added ~91797 label

Milestone changed to 8.9

mentioned in issue #580

mentioned in issue #631 (closed)

Reassigned to @smcgivern

mentioned in merge request !484 (merged)

Status changed to closed by merge request !484 (merged)

mentioned in commit 589c7cfc

mentioned in commit 8f8101d7

mentioned in issue #554 (closed)

@smcgivern Thanks for working on !484 (merged). I don't think it solves the request here, though. When a merge request approver is 'assigned' that person should receive a notification (and todo). !484 (merged) did resolve #554 (closed), though, so that's great.

Status changed to reopened

@dblessing thanks, I think I was a bit confused by the two comments here: https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ee/issues/42#note_2652506

They seem to imply that what was wanted in this issue was a notification on MR approval. But obviously the description says something different. When you say 'assigned', do you mean that someone's set as an approver? So if I'm one of 10 approvers, and someone creates an MR with the default approvers, I get an email and a todo?

@smcgivern Right, your understanding in the last paragraph is correct. I can see how the comments would be confusing. It's curious why !44 (merged) didn't take care of this as it seems it should have. Thanks for taking a look again.

Milestone changed to %8.10

Thanks @dblessing. @JobV I'm adding this to 8.10 as I thought I'd done the last part needed in 8.9, but hadn't

This is what I'll be implementing:

So if I'm one of 10 approvers, and someone creates an MR with the default approvers, I get an email and a todo

Started branch 42-merge-approvals-don-t-appear-to-trigger-notification-emails

@dblessing - I'm still working on adding todos, but in my testing this definitely emails an approver on MR creation. Is there a ticket for this not working?

mentioned in issue #765 (closed)

mentioned in merge request !547 (merged)

Status changed to closed by merge request !547 (merged)

Mentioned in commit 589c7cfc

Mentioned in commit 8f8101d7

Mentioned in commit 6b077ae7

Mentioned in issue #580

I know this issue has been closed for a while but I am curious if there is any way for me to disable these "eligible approver" email notifications. Normally they would be useful, but my organization maintains a fixed list of approvers for each project and that means that each day I receive dozens of emails informing me of new MRs (because I've been automatically tagged as a potential approver).

My preference is to only receive email alerts when a user has explicitly tagged me or I have previously interacted, but with the way our project is configured I get alerts for every new MR and every subsequent comment on those MRs because my eligible approver status appears to cause gitlab to consider me a participant going forward on those MRs.