Receiving requests by email
Before you start
- Make sure you have JIRA Administrator and Administer Projects permission.
- Enable public signup, or add customers to your service desk project to ensure that you receive new requests.
- Set up a suitable request type with Summary and Description as required visible fields. Any other fields must be optional.
- Know which emails from your mail client will be processed.
Customer requests and comments are processed differently than Jira mail. Issues created via Jira email handlers don't show up as service desk customer requests. For this reason, we don't recommend using a Jira mail handler for service desk projects.
Add an email account
Open your service desk project and go to Project settings > Email requests. Select Add an email address. Easy enough. Choose your email service provider and enter the requested details before selecting Next.
If your Gmail or Yahoo! account uses two-step verification, you'll need to set up an application-specific password.
Choose a request type
When a customer emails your service desk, a corresponding request is created with the following two fields:
- Summary (from the email subject line)
- Description (from the email content)
To use the email channel, you therefore need to have at least one request type in your project with Summary and Description fields – we call these types of requests "suitable for emails". Associating email requests with a suitable service desk request type ensures that the emails are successfully filtered into your service desk queues. In this example, we have one suitable request type Get help:
Select a suitable request type for your email channel and select Done.
Verify your linked email account
Once you have chosen a suitable request type, Jira Service Desk sends a test email and creates a corresponding test request in your service desk project. Head on over to the Queues tab to find the new request:
New messages sent to your linked email account appear as service desk requests in your project. For more information about which emails are processed by Jira Service Desk, expand the option that applies to you:
Emails using POP
Emails using IMAP
Prepare customers for email greatness
Before you share your email address with your customers, you'll want double check the customer permissions for your service desk:
- If anyone can email your service desk, then you're good to go! People who email your service desk automatically become customers.
- If customers have to be manually added to your project, then make sure your team creates new customer accounts for them. If people who aren't customers email your service desk, their requests won't be processed.
Email channel notes
You can only link one email account to your service desk project.If you use more than one email address to interact with your customers, you might be able to set up forwarding rules or aliases to receive requests in the email linked to your service desk project. You will need to configure any forwarding rules or aliases in your email client.
- If you are a Jira Administrator, you can refer to Managing the email channel to learn more about global mail settings.
- If you encountered any issues during the email setup process, check out some common errors and resolutions here.