Rules Fetch entity by property using fixed User Role 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 &quot;Fetch entity by property&quot; with property &quot;User Roles&quot; 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 &quot;direct&quot; input mode. However that option does not appear to be available on this form. Am I missing something? is this maybe a bug?
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.