Using one email address for multiple Service Desk projects

[Celeste Momsen]

We are considering using Service Desk in future, and have just evaluated the trial version.

We'd like to set up multiple projects, with each one based on the type of support query (e.g. Technical Help, Software Help, etc).

We will not be pre-loading customers or assigning them to specific projects. Any of our staff members or customers (whether new or existing) should be able to log any type of issue via email.

We'd like just one email address to be used for this purpose so that it's easy for everyone to remember, i.e. "support@ourcompanyname.com".

My Question is:

Is there a way for these email queries to be directed into the correct project (considering the person logging it won't know at that point which type / category of query it is)?

Or would we need a separate project as a "Catch All" for incoming issues, from which we manually move it to the relevant project?

[Angélica Luz · Accepted solution]

Hi Celeste,

Thank you for reaching out to Atlassian Community!

We appreciate all the details.

On Service Desk, currently, each project must have a different email and only one request type can be associated with this email.

For a request type to be suitable for email,  only the summary and description can be required, so there is no other field that Jira can check to automatically move to a different request type. 

A workaround is to use an automation to change the request type based on keywords of the summary, but if the customer doesn't use this key work, everything must be manual.

So, to answer your question, the option you need is not possible on Service Desk. 

If you have any other question, please let us know.

Regards,
Angélica

[Celeste Momsen]

Thanks Angélica

Based on your response - If we want to use only one email address for our support queries, it seems our only options are to:

A) Use just one Project, or

B) Create multiple projects but manually shift issues from the "main" project into the other projects.

This leads to an additional challenge. When a client logs an issue, they receive an automated email with their ticket number. Moving the ticket into a different project will change this ticket number. Does the client then receive another email advising them of the new ticket number (or does an automation need to be set up for this)?

[Angélica Luz]

Let’s say that this case is more complicated because on Service Desk we can use only one email for one request type.

Customers won’t receive a notification if the ticket is moved from a project to another, so they won't know if the ticket number changed.

Also, when a ticket is moved to another project, the request type will not be automatically set, it will show as “No match” and it will prevent the customer to receive notification because that’s what triggers the notification, so we always need to check this information after moving a ticket.

[Celeste Momsen]

Hi Angelica

Thanks for explaining how moving tickets to different projects will impact the notifications. We definitely don't want this to happen!

The reason for exploring all these options too, is because we may want to implement Service Desk to allow 2 options:

Option 1: Logging of issues via email, using our usual support email address (which has been hooked up to a specific Service Desk project).

Option 2: Logging of issues via the Online Portal (while still keeping the email logging channel mentioned above).

We're looking at the best way to use these 2 Options together.

Option 1 definitely means we can use only one Service Desk project for all issues.

Option 2 is more suited to using multiple projects, as these are what is shown on the Online Portal, which makes it easier for clients to categorise what they need help with. However this would mean that issues logged via email would just fall under one project, but issues logged via the Online Portal would be split into other projects. This can make it confusing for our internal agents / team to monitor, as they'd need to look across at least 2 projects for similar types or "categories" of requests.

The best solution seems to be sticking with one Project only - considering that email is our main method of having issues reported currently, and encouraging the logging of issues via the Online Portal could take a while to adopt.

Would this make sense?

[Angélica Luz]

Hi Celeste,

I understand that you would like to use one email to several request types, but unfortunately, there is no feature that will filter those emails and change it to the correct request type.

You can add many request types to a project and you can also edit the notifications template to add a message for the customer saying that, for example, if they are facing technical issues or if they need help related to a specific issue, they can log in on the portal and create a ticket.

Also, agents can triage the emails and change the issue type or request type.

As you can’t use the same email on different projects, I agree with you to use only one project, because it can be more confusing for customers to have different email addresses to create tickets than to have only one email and have a portal to create tickets for different types of problems.

On the customer portal, you can add announcements to let the customer know that when they need help with a simple request, they can send an email, for example.

If there is anything else we can help with, please let us know.

Regards,
Angélica

[Celeste Momsen]

Thanks for your response, Angélica. It has been helpful.

[Ferran Castell]

We would need that functionality too. Just one email account and then the ticket is created in one project or another based on the domain name of their email. So domain names are associated to projects and it is all what's needed to send the request to the right place.