Rules Fetch entity by property using fixed User Role

Question

Versions

Drupal 7
Rules 2.9

Problem

I am trying to loop through all users with a given role. I am trying to pull the users using the action "Fetch entity by property" with property "User Roles" But the value does not allow me to enter a static role. It forces me to select some available variable using tokens. If I enter a static value and save it returns a validation error.

How do I set the property to a static role?

Note the role is not the same as the user creating the node.

Rule

I would include a serialized copy of the rule but frankly none of the rest of the rule matters. Roughly:

Trigger: node create.
Condition: node is published.
Action: Grab all users with editor role.
Action: loop through all users and send e-mail or add to a nodequeue (havn't decided which yet).

More info

The documentation seems to indicate I should use "direct" input mode. However that option does not appear to be available on this form. Am I missing something? is this maybe a bug?

Answer 1

Answering my own quesiton. I guess I should have found this sooner. But writing it down here helped me process the vocabulary I needed to search for.

I do indeed need to switch to direct input mode. In fact if you switch to direct input mode it will give you a list of roles to select. However direct input mode is not available on initial creation.

To fix simply save as some value (I used site:user:role). Then edit the rule again and direct input will be available. It appears to be a bug listed here: https://www.drupal.org/node/2168961

Thanks and hope this helps someone else.