Send alert in Azure DevOps (VSTS) to person in Identity type field in work item

Question

We added the pre-existing field "Subject Matter Expert 1" to the User Story work item type. The field is of type Identity. Is it possible to add an alert so that the person in that field will get an email in certain conditions, such as when the work item is in a Board Column called "Specification".

Answer 1

By default with the current subscription model you can subscribe an alert to any work item fields that changed. But while sending the alerts dynamically to the person(role) specific to "Subject Matter Expert 1" is not-available (I think).

You can only send alerts to the below roles

• Assigned to (new)
• Assigned to (previous)
• Assigned to (current)
• Changed by
• Created by
• Authorized as

So you can use Service-hooks for your requirement.

1. Create a Service hook which will hook whenever a work item is updated.
2. Handle the hooks by creating Azure functions/your own web application to check for your certain conditions.
3. Create your own Send mail function if your condition matches.