How does Service Desk communicate with the customers?

[Simon Bauer]

Hi,

at my company, we are currently using JIRA for internal issue management as well as time tracking (Tempo). We also have an internal confluence.

So the head of my department is thinking of using Service Desk in order to provide our customers a way to create issue tickets online without calling our helpdesk.

Now I was ordered to get some informations about Service Desk. I've red the whole online documentation and it seems, that this is a very powerful and usable tool. But I still have a question:

Currently, we are using JIRA internally only. It runs on a server which isn't reachable from the outside of our network (for example from the internet). Now given the situation that JIRA and Service Desk are at several points wired to each other - would I have to install Service Desk to the same server as JIRA is already running on? If so, how can I make sure that the customers have only access to Service Dask and nothing else running on the server? Or would I have to make my whole JIRA System accessible from the outside?

Sorry if the question seems a bit odd, but I'm still learning how this whole thing is working. Also please don't mind my english. x)

Cheers and thanks in advance for your answers,

Simon.

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist- · Accepted solution]

Service desk is an addon to JIRA.  It's not "wired to Jira", it runs entirely inside it.  

You install it in Jira, and your users will need to access the JIRA urls to use it (not all of them, but at least the service desk parts of it).  They won't have normal JIRA accounts, it won't let them into the other parts unless you make them proper JIRA users, but you are going to have to make the whole system accessible from the outside.

[Simon Bauer]

Okay, thanks for the quick answer! I now understand, how this works!

What exactly are "JIRA urls"? Do you mean like 

http://tickets.companyname.com:8080/and_so_on ?

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

Yup. Have a look at the Jira "base url" - that's what the whole of Jira runs under. If you've got that set to http://tickets.companyname.com:8080/jira, then everything in Jira, including service desk, lives on urls that start with that.

[Simon Bauer]

Thanks for the quick and good answer! :)

[Intel CHD Jira Admin]

The crucial consideration is that you will have to make JIRA available to external incoming connections, meaning you'll have to punch a hole through your company's firewall. This is a very serious move, since it makes the server directly vunerable to exploitation. Assume that every crazy in the world (some of them smart-crazy) will be attacking your JIRA instance. Atlassian runs JIRA this way (its own support instances, cloud instances) and they think it's fine. But it may require a degree of expertise (e.g. a DMZ configuration) and due diligence by your IT that they are not ready for. You'll also have to make sure the security updates are religiously installed, as Atlassian counters discovered exploits (see https://confluence.atlassian.com/display/JIRA/Security+Advisories). Think carefully before you plunge!

-David

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

I think that's answered by my answer!

[Nagy Orsolya]

Hi, Service Desk in order to provide our customers a way to create issue tickets online without calling our helpdesk. Now I was ordered to get some informations about Service Desk. I've red the whole online documentation and it seems, that this is a very powerful and usable tool. But I still have a question: Currently, we are using JIRA internally only. It runs on a server which isn't reachable from the outside of our network (for example from the internet).JIRA--?.. Cheers and thanks in advance for your answers, Nagy Orsolya,