JIRA Service Desk access to external user

Question

Is it possible to use JIRA Service Desk in a way that will allow access to users that cannot access the network that JIRA is installed on?

For example, we have JIRA setup inside a VPN, but we service accounts that cannot access that VPN. How can we accept service requests and track conversations without allowing the users access to the JIRA servers?

Victor Crittenden · Answer

@Nic Brough [Adaptavist] Thank's for the quick reply! I'm on the same page as you are; was just wondering if there was a community supported suggestion for email/cots functionality to allow users to 'see into a network they're not part of'. I'm looking at the [Email Helpdesk Plugin|https://marketplace.atlassian.com/plugins/es.edataunited.supportSystemJiraPlugin.supportSystemJiraPlugin] now. Tried to go through a guide similar to the one you suggested in your reply, but have some issues with message formatting. I'll be sure to put up my evaluation of those methods after some more testing.

Nic Brough -Adaptavist- · Answer

You can't.  JIRA and Service Desk are actually utterly irrelevant here, what you're asking for is "I want to see something on a network that I can't see anything on".

To enable anything here, you need to open the network first, even if it's only to a limited set of urls, but the users actually seeing JIRA/SD isn't going to happen without that.

The only other options are to

1) Put up some form of proxy application that they can see somewhere else, and have that talk to JIRA/SD (Frankly, that's a total waste of everyone's time, but I mention it for completeness)

2) Use email.  Service Desk and JIRA both do email natively.  The only problem you'll have with that is that the interaction is very limited and users will be getting emails with links to urls that will fail because your network won't let them in.  See https://confluence.atlassian.com/servicedeskserver030/receiving-requests-by-email-761768815.html