Setting up JIRA Service Desk Users

Each user of JIRA Service Desk must have a license to use JIRA; this includes customers who use the Customer Portal to submit requests. You can read more about why licensing is set up this way on our blog.

Types of JIRA Service Desk users

There are three main ways users interact with JIRA Service Desk:

• Service desk managers use the service desk interface in JIRA to customize and manage a service desk for a given project. Service desk managers are users with administrative rights in the JIRA project, which allows them to configure the service desk, use the report tools in the service desk, create SLAs for measuring progress, and connect a Confluence knowledge base to the service desk. 
• Service team members use the service desk interface in JIRA to view their queues, reports generated by the service desk manager, and the SLA metrics they're working against. When service desk team members work on a customer request, they update and log information on the request using the standard JIRA issue view. This gives them access to all the JIRA features for managing issues. 

• Customers use a clean, simple Customer Portal to log their requests; they aren't required to see the service desk tools used by the service desk managers or team members. As their request is being worked on, they receive emails on the status changes and public comments made by the service desk team. They can also use the Customer Portal to see a list of all their requests (current or completed).

Requests seen by customers versus service team members

The following screenshots show the different views customers and the service team members see when they open a request. 

JIRA Service Desk project roles and permissions

Based on the three types of users, JIRA Service Desk creates two additional default JIRA project roles, Service Desk Team and Service Desk Customers. These two roles mirror the way service team members and customers interact with JIRA Service Desk, and the Administrators role mirrors that of the service desk managers.  

JIRA Service Desk also provides a standard permission scheme (JIRA Service Desk Permission scheme for [project]) that automatically gives your JIRA Service Desk users the correct permissions for the project role you assign them. For example, giving users the Service Desk Team role will allow them read-only access to JIRA Service Desk, as well as allow them to work on issues in JIRA. 

Setting up users

With the standard permission scheme and project roles in place, adding users to a JIRA Service Desk project just involves creating the users in JIRA and assigning them to the project role you want them to have. To do this, use the following information:

1. Create the users in JIRA.
2. In your service desk, go to the People tab, and assign a project role to your users or make sure that the groups which they belong to are associated with the project role.
   Screenshot: Setting up project roles for your service desk
   

In order for customers to submit requests through the Customer Portal, they must log in with their JIRA credentials (either through JIRA or the Customer Portal). Customers can also update their name, email address, password, timezone, and avatar from the Customer Portal. This information will be updated in the JIRA user directory automatically.

Note: Updating avatars does not work in Internet Explorer 8.

Using custom permission schemes