A way to let new customers know when emails are blocked

Question

We have our JSM set up to not accept cases/emails from users it doesn't know.
This means we get the details and messages in the email logs as expected

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This is an oddly worded message as it is worded as response but only ever shows up in a log we can see.

Is there anyway we can actually respond to emails to tell them that the email was not accepted ?
Otherwise this is a manual task to check the logs, download the emails and check what needs to be done.

Dwight Holman · Answer

Depending what you want the following backlog tickets might be relevant:

* JSDCLOUD-818 JSM should send reply or notification when mail handler cannot create or update issue
* JSDCLOUD-988 Reply email to users who don't have Service Desk accounts and public signup is disabled, instead of silently ignoring those emails. (Closed)
* JSDCLOUD-2517 Notifications for incoming emails that fail to be processed
* JSDCLOUD-4427 Get notifications on incoming emails that fail to create a ticket

Dwight Holman · Answer

We recently tested JSM for external customer support and found it did not work how we wanted (or expected).

After discussion with Atlassian they confirm that JSM does NOT (as of mid-2024) respond to email from non-Customers unless the Customer Permissions > Channel access is set to 'Open'. NOTE: this assumes your JSM instance allows External customers to create accounts.

For Restricted projects we think JSM should offer the option to:

* send a custom email message to the requester (customer)
* send an on-boarding request/notification with the customer's details to the support team (agents) or project lead or a configured email address.

How to reply to email that was not accepted

A bunch of manual steps (requires JSM project administration permissions):

* In your JSM project: Project Settings > Email requests
* Click the view logs link in the email account.
* Filter the list for FAILED requests.
* Click the ... and click Download raw email message.

From there you can reply to the external customer.

What is the Alternative?

One work-around is to make the project Open and allow anyone to send requests. Then you would need to manually revoke access to non-customers (or anyone you don't want to provide support). This also means your KB content would be visible to anyone that registers.

Really it seems that "Restricted" JSM projects are only workable for a 'closed' or managed set of customers (e.g. internal staff).

Do others have ideas or solutions to share? I would be interested to hear others views...