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Name

Enterprise Message Handler for JIRA (JEMH)

JIRA

5.0+ see Marketplace for current JIRA releases

Support

Ask a Question, or OnDemand email support via jemh-support@thepluginpeople.com

License

Commercial, get a free evaluation license via the installed JEMH plugin License page

Purchasing

After installation, see the JEMH plugin License page. also, sales@thepluginpeople.com

Marketplace

https://marketplace.atlassian.com/plugins/com.javahollic.jira.jemh-ui

IssueTracking

on JIRA Cloud

JEMH Overview

JEMH is an Enterprise Message Handler for JIRA that provides key business enabling functionality for your JIRA. Currently JEMH supports several Transports such as Email, HipChat and coming soon XMPP. Examples of some of this functionality are shown below:

JIRA Mail handling v.s JEMH enhanced handling

JIRA Mail HandlerJEMH Mail Handler
  • Capability to pull mail into JIRA, creating and comment on issues, add attachments etc. It does that by specifying a (singular) target project. The relationship is one handler/project to one mailbox
  • Ability to consume emails from unregistered users (but not the ability to include those users in updates to created issues)
  • Ability to create users from their email address
  • Depending on the 'choice' of mail handler different 'capabilities' can be gained, but they cannot be used together.
  • HTML email has a basic conversion to wiki markup compatible output

Inbound Mail Handler

  • JIRA email handlers don't scale, you will have problems with more than 50 or so inbound mail handlers (never mind the configuration). With JEMH, you can route many addresses from a common mailbox to many projects, effectively supporting N projects with N mailboxes with one mailbox connection (this is why JEMH was first written).
  • Auditing, JEMH retains history of email received, and what happened, in case of failure, it is possible to exhume these emails and re-execute them against JEMH configuration Profiles until processing succeeds
  • Round trip support for both JIRA users (via standard JIRA Notification schemes) as well as email users
  • JEMH Profiles (configuration) include all inbound mail handling configuration. A Profile can be referred by one or many JEMH Mail Handlers (reducing complexity overall). Profiles can be exported and imported, allowing environment migration, and supply for support purposes.
    • Project Mappings within Profiles allow mail to be routed to Projects based on Rules, Sender or JIRA mailbox Recipient, Keyword (body/subject) or sender user group. Each Mapping underlying Rule can be used to route mail and customize how they are created (change assignee, priority, labels etc)
    • JEMH has 'Directives' that are email supplied key/value pairs allowing issues to be manipulated (e.g. priority, custom fields, dueDate, workflow etc), during create, or comment, with blacklist/whitelisting and JIRA user group usage restrictions possible
    • Field Processors are different 'interpreters' for email supplied content, most enable Directives supplied in a different way. The most versatile of these is the Regexp Field Processor, enabled regexp extraction of values from content, mapping to custom fields, but also, with such extracted values, its possible to translate these external values (eg priority 'must have' to internal JIRA specific values 'blocker' via JEMH Aliases.
  • Customizable templates (Text, HTML, Subject) for all events. Ability to preview template edits (render the template) at edit time
  • Customizable notifications for email users vs JIRA account holders (enable different events)
  • Email compatibility, JEMH has extensive support for fixing defective emails. The world is full of mail sources generating 'broken' emails that are not possible to process with default handlers. JEMH can fix many structural issues 'on the fly'
  • Inline image support (a richer user experience), JEMH can inline pasted images with wiki markup 'inline', both on the created issue and:
  • Outbound notification supporting inline images, if an issue includes an inline notification, JEMH can mail that out
  • Blacklisting of emails by subject out of the box, based on regexp.
  • Blacklisting of all standard JIRA images when attached, of image attachments based on size (e.g. <5K), of images specifically uploaded (signature image) based on their hash
  • BETA: Status notifications, allow JIRA to notify email-only users of open/recently-closed issues.
  • Auto creation of users, but, integrated with LDAP for user lookup and correct userID usage in JIRA instead of just email address
  • JEMH is designed for extensibility, key feature points are extendible making new implementations for customers specific requirements possible
  • Test Cases are a feature of JEMH that allow simple email scenarios to be mocked up, quickly, to valid configuration outcome, email content can be edited in situ. Exporting email content from auditing to Test Cases is common, and also allows problem emails to be provided for support

Ad-hoc notifications

  • Ability for users to mail out template driven content to specified issue participants and email-only users, including selected issue attachments, feature can be secured to Roles on a per-project basis

Postfunctions

  • Ability to drive notifications from workflow, similar feature set to the Ad-hoc notification, but also including a JEMH Custom Field for transition-specific (notification with) selected attachments.

Event Listener

The JEMH Event Listener can react to User Events as well as the usual Issue Events. Configuration can be added on a per-project basis, or globally, events can be enabled individually, and custom templates if created may be selected over the default JIRA template. Its also possible to script mutation of the event, to 'decide' that because issues have certain properties, that a custom Issue Event needs to be fired (sending a different notification).

Compatibility

JEMH has compatible versions for JIRA 5.x and up.  Sometimes API changes in JIRA mean that JEMH has to break backward compatibility, so the latest version will not necessarily work for older JIRA releases, and this becomes more true the further back you go.  Always check Marketplace compatibility!  For more information, see the Upgrading JEMH wiki page.

Transport

A relatively new feature of JEMH is support of pluggable transport layers.  Each Transport hooks into the JEMH Event Listener, can have per-event enablement, and customized template content in text or html.  Current Transports include:

  • HipChat (download) - Supports Text and HTML including images, free to use.
  • XMPP (nearing release) - Supports Text and HTML, to be commercial.

Configure JEMH to your needs

JEMH has a full user interface for real-time customisation of all features.  Configurations can be exported/imported for migration between environments.

Route your mail

Default mail handler implementations are not scalable, with project numbers rising, you will be seeing you mail server beginning to creak under the poll load, and JIRA issue creation slow down. JEMH solves this with Project Mappings, allowing arbitrary configurations based on addressee or sender email address, even sender group membership, in order to route to a target project. Created issues can be tailored as appropriate:

JEMH enabling JIRA as a Helpdesk

Using JIRA as a Helpdesk out of the box requires creation of users, but if the interaction is fleeting, and with a lot of support traffic, a significant amount of wasted seats will accrue, never mind the JIRA user account 'noise'. JEMH solves this by mapping remote user email addresses to a Custom Field, and uses a "Default Reporter" to nominally create the issue on their behalf. Updates by interactive JIRA-users (and remote non jira-users) cause Issue Events to be fired, to which a JEMH Issue Event Listener reacts, making use of JEMH TemplateSets, can notify remote users of these changes.

JIRA licensing is based on the number of interactive application users.  This refers to users that own a user account capable of logging into JIRA instances.

JEMH reducing Spam in your JIRA

So often JIRA's around the world get bombarded by various automated responses, e.g. Out of Office. At the least this can be distracting trying to trace an issue, at worst, it may cause email loops (though Precedence: bulk should help identify such traffic). JEMH global subject blacklisting can stop that from ever happening.

JEMH Directives

Directives allow remote users/automation solutions to manipulate issues through email. With several formats to choose from JEMH can be the email integration glue required to join disparate systems to JIRA.

JEMH Field Processors

JEMH has several Field Processors, each tailored to processing emails in a particular format. There are many generic formats available for inbound issue creation. Some system-specific custom integrations are also available, and will be expanded in future.

Useful Links

  • How Do I.... - An extensive and ever-growing series of guides for achieving common JEMH set-up goals
  • Common Problems - Encountered a problem or error?  Check this list to see if a solution is provided
  • JEMH Issue Tracker - Can't find what you are looking for on our wiki? Post an issue there, or alternatively email us

Recent updates

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