How to work with issue collector in Service Desk when users are unknown? (Or, what options for form-based ticket creation for unknown users?)

Question

We've just moved over from ZenDesk and were surprised to learn that issue collectors can't handle unknown users (i.e., the submitter needs to be a defined user before they can be listed as a reporter).  And if the submitter isn't listed as a reporter, they don't get automatic notifications, which is one of the primary benefits of a ticketing system!  (Otherwise it looks like we have to manually create user accounts for each unknown user that comes in - and then add that new user to the Reporter field - which really isn't tenable.)

Does anyone else use Service Desk as a ticketing system for a SaaS application, or is simply not designed for that?  Is there an alternative to creating a form-based help ticket interface - other than an issue collector - that I'm overlooking?  Seems like a basic feature to have...

Thanks!

Nic Brough -Adaptavist- · Accepted Answer

Ah, this is one of the somewhat confusing things with the divergence of the three JIRA applications.

Issue collectors are an old function that JIRA projects had to help with testing and, well, collecting issues from applications.  Bypassing the long dull history, the short story is that they're JIRA Core functions, and to use JIRA Core, you have to be a user

JIRA Service Desk however, is for Agents and customers.

JSD is useful for SaaS application support, but, the issue collectors are not Service Desk functions!  That's confusing, and I sort of expect a version of issue collectors to make their way into Service Desk at some point.  The user will still need an account - they need to be a "customer", but those accounts are little more than an email address and a login so they  can check progress (issue collectors can collect issues anonymously too, but that's pretty much useless)