Summary

You wish to configure JEMH to facilitate email creation and commenting in JSD projects by Customer Users (which are created automatically).

Email senders can be divided into 2 main groups; users that have JIRA accounts associated with their email address (Jira Users) and those who do not (Non-Jira Users).  In most typical Service Desk scenarios, both customers and agents hold user accounts.  However, a Non-Jira User may still be used if that is what is needed.

Customer user configuration

This section can be ignored if you are using a version released since improvements were made.

  • A user group should be created that is only for Customer users.  In this example we have named it customer.

  • This customer user group must:

    • Be assigned the Project Role Service Desk Customers by going to the project's Users and roles section

    • Be granted issue permissions that are appropriate for customers

Do not grant customers or the customer group the "Service Desk Agent" permission as this will cause problems with comment privacy. Also, do not give Agent users membership of the "Service Desk Customer" project role.

Granting permissions directly via the Service Desk Customer project role will be detected as a configuration problem by Service Desk. It will disable the "Anyone can sign up for a customer account" behaviour.

Profile configuration

Profile>User

  • Your JEMH profile should have a Default Reporter selected.  This user should have all non-admin issue permissions and also be a Service Desk Agent.  Note that customers must not have Service Desk Agent permission.

  • If you want new customer users to be automatically created when an existing account is not found for the sender address, enable Create users and enter the name of the customer user group that you have created under Auto Join Group(s)

Profile>Security

  • The setting Treat Unprivileged Users as Non-Jira should be enabled

Setting the Customer Request Type field

In order for issues created by JEMH to be visible via the customer portal, it needs to set the issues Customer Request Type field.

JEMH version 2.3.2 makes setting the field easy when using Custom Field Defaults. When the field is selected on the Custom Field Default edit screen, a drop-down list of available request types for the current Project Mapping is displayed:

For earlier versions, you will need to determine the hidden field value that Jira Service Desk uses, and set that.  The values are normally found in the format projectKey/requestTypeKey.

For example, the correct value to use for a Service Desk project with the key SER and Customer Request Type of Get IT help might be ser/getithelp.

From version 1.9.3, JEMH outputs a list of request type values to its log file when the profile configuration page is opened.  The Request Type key is found inside the second pair of square brackets.  For older versions, see Common Problems - Locating Customer Request Type.

Example log output using Service Desk 3.1
DEBUG [emh.ui.action.JEMHConfiguration] JSD RequestType [systemproblem] Report a system problem
DEBUG [emh.ui.action.JEMHConfiguration] JSD RequestType [getithelp] Get IT help
DEBUG [emh.ui.action.JEMHConfiguration] JSD RequestType [accountproblem] Fix an account problem
DEBUG [emh.ui.action.JEMHConfiguration] JSD RequestType [guestwifi] Get a guest wifi account
DEBUG [emh.ui.action.JEMHConfiguration] JSD RequestType [vpn] Set up VPN to the office
DEBUG [emh.ui.action.JEMHConfiguration] JSD RequestType [adminaccess] Request admin access
DEBUG [emh.ui.action.JEMHConfiguration] JSD RequestType [newaccount] Request a new account
DEBUG [emh.ui.action.JEMHConfiguration] JSD RequestType [newhires] Onboard new hires
DEBUG [emh.ui.action.JEMHConfiguration] JSD RequestType [compsupport] Desktop/Laptop support
DEBUG [emh.ui.action.JEMHConfiguration] JSD RequestType [phoneredirect] Set up a phone line redirect
DEBUG [emh.ui.action.JEMHConfiguration] JSD RequestType [newsoftware] Request new software
DEBUG [emh.ui.action.JEMHConfiguration] JSD RequestType [newhardware] Request new hardware
DEBUG [emh.ui.action.JEMHConfiguration] JSD RequestType [upgradeserver] Upgrade or change a server
DEBUG [emh.ui.action.JEMHConfiguration] JSD RequestType [upgradesystem] Upgrade or change a managed system

Setting the JSD Request Channel type field

When JEMH is used to create an issue, it will try to set the channel type to "Email" so that you can differentiate the issue from those that are created interactively.  If the channel type is not changed to "Email", make sure that the user that created the issue has "Edit Issue" permissions (this is the user who is used to set the channel).

Testing

Using JEMH's Test Case functionality, send a test email from an address that is not currently being used.  The email should be successfully processed, resulting in a new issue being created in your Service Desk project.

New customer user is created, and a member of the customer group

Issue is created, with the customer set as the reporter

Preventing duplicate notifications

The Event Listener can be used to generate notifications for Service Desk projects, but Service Desk itself will by default have its own notification system enabled.  This will prevent Jira from sending notifications, but not JEMH.  This will therefore mean that duplicate notifications may be sent.  In order to stop JSD's own system from generating notifications:

Jira Service Desk 3.3 or newer

Go to the Project settings>Customer notifications and disable each issue event rule.  See https://thepluginpeople.atlassian.net/browse/JEMH-5253 for more information.

Jira Service Desk 3.0 - 3.2

Go to Applications>Jira Service Desk>Configuration and turn its notifications system off by clicking the on/off toggle.

Jira Core and Jira Software user participation

If you have Jira Core or Jira Software users that are going to be participating on Service Desk issues, make sure that they have been added to the "Service Desk Team" project role as per this Atlassian documentation: https://confluence.atlassian.com/servicedeskserver033/setting-up-service-desk-users-861255260.html.

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