How to address customers who don't have active company email addresses

Question

I'm implementing Jira Service Management with Atlassian Access for user provisioning. I've implemented this way at several companies. However, this is the first time where I have a large group of users that don't have active company email addresses and I'm wondering what the best way to address this constraint.

This Jira project is for employees only. I have ~1,400 employees total that are being provisioned that need access to the help center. About ~600 have active mailboxes. The rest don't have active mailboxes. I'm concerned that if one of the employees that don't have an active mailbox submits an issue, they won't get any of the email communications (acknowledgement, comments, etc.). Additionally, agents won't easily know who does have an active mailbox and who doesn't, making some comments not be received.

I am considering creating a custom field for email and just have those employees enter their personal email addresses. However, then I have agents communicating outside of Jira making it so the communication isn't being tracked.

I'm wondering if there is a better way to address this issue. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Jack Brickey · Answer

I don't know about the best way TBH. However, you can bulk create the customers using a CSV string of emails and copying/pasting into the Add customer dialog. I have seen others mention using the APIs as well.

Ted Korba · Answer

Hi @Jack Brickey,

Thanks for the quick response.

Right now, the ~600 employees are being automatically provisioned via Atlassian Access which gives them access to the portal using their SSO credentials. Based on Atlassian's documentation for provisioning users without O365 licenses, we are mapping User Principle Name to the Unique Name ID as well as the Email Address attribute. What that does for those unlicensed users is that it gives them an email address that doesn't exist. You can't change the email address for their accounts because it is locked/managed by our identity provider.

Are you suggesting that the only other option would be to provision these users manually using their personal email addresses? In my experience, I've only used Atlassian Access and am not sure on the best way to have ~600 employees create accounts manually.

Jack Brickey · Answer

So how will these ~600 employees be setup as customers? How would they create tickets? If they use their personal emails why can that not be used to set up these customers thus ensuring they get proper notification?