New e-mails with different Subjects are added as comments to unrelated issues

Question

Hi. I am having an issue where a series of e-mails are being added as comments to an existing closed Issue instead of creating new issues. The Subjects of the e-mails are different, but the sender is the same.

E.g:

Issue created via e-mail request with subject:

INC0860423 - EFB Data Not received

This issue is closed.

Then I receive from same sender an email request with subject:

INC0917344 - vAmos Alarms

This, instead of creating a new issue, is being added to the first one as comment.

This is a really bad behaviour which totally destroys the tracing of the issues raised via e-mail. Anyone has found this issue and knows a solution? Is it because it starts as INC? if so... it is a terrible matching criteria

Suzi Firth · Answer

Hi All,

I can confirm that what support told the original user is correct.

In our organization we have amendment notifications for employees that are emailed out  when their location changes. So the subject might be "Amendment notification John Doe" and then they'll send one for another employee "Amendment notification Travis Barker".

If the reporter goes back to a previous email they have sent and replies or forwards, updates the text for the next employee and sends to our Servicedesk like it's a new email, it adds as a new comment on the original ticket they sent way back when.

If the reporter starts a brand new email, same subject like "Amendment notification Travis Barker" pastes in the template for the email and fills in all the details and sends, this is logged as a new ticket.

I reviewed the email headers for both emails and none of the message IDs were the same but yet Jira Email Handler understood these to be the same for some reason and added as a comment. I've advised the reporter to always start a fresh email for these notifications, but it does raise the issue that a reporter can find an email from 3 months ago, reply and expect it to be a new ticket, but actually adds as a new comment to a ticket that has been closed for some time.

I would expect that once a ticket has reached a closed status, it is locked for edited and can no longer be commented on.

Regards,

Suzi

unknown · Answer

So, talking with the customer support, basically they tell me that the issue is that the messageID is the same, because the reporter used an old email, deleted all the fields including the subject and content and then wrote a new one. Which is a terrible way of handling e-mails, because they do not take into consideration a more than common situation when there is a constant report of issues between two companies. Really, really bad. Their solution is: Tell the customers to not send e-mails that way. Dear goodness.

unknown · Answer

Thank you. I have checked the audit log but there is nothing really relevant there. I have opened the ticket to see if they can figure out what is going on. Will post it here whenever I get the solution