Using Core incoming email and Service Desk together

Question

We were using Core and did not have "customers/users" without licenses.  If an end user internally sent an email to the mailbox watched by Core, it opened an issue and we updated the information they sent.  We then decided we want to use Service desk for IT support and have users email in IT requests.  To do this, the end user must have an account or "sign-up" if they don't.  Once they create an account, this will prevent them from sending emails to the Core part of the system.

Is there no way to have each product work without having to buy licenses for people that will never log into Jira?

Please help...this has been terribly frustrating trying to figure out the licensing scheme here.  I can explain more if needed.  thanks!

Benjamin Soehngen · Answer

Thanks Eric.

Unfortunately, when you add a customer into the service desk project, it actually creates a user with no license and therefore preventing that email address from sending emails to any of the Core mail handlers.  This is why I asked the original question.

There doesn't seem to be any way around this.  The customers and users are one in the same....

HELP!!!

Eric Franklin_d8jeul · Answer

Hi Benjamin,

I'll be happy to try and help. JIRA Service Desk "customer" portal usage does not use up licenses in any capacity, and the incoming mail setup is controlled separately from the JIRA mail handlers and mail servers used by Core. If you want your users to be able to submit tickets to your service desk, you can add them to your customer list for that particular service desk project and open up incoming mail:

https://confluence.atlassian.com/servicedeskserver036/customize-your-service-desk-channels-921471532.html

The only way a user will take up a license is if they are a service desk agent (and have service desk app access in your instance). Service Desk agents are the users working on incoming IT requests.

tldr: If a licensed JIRA user is added to a project's customer list, they can submit requests to Service Desk via it's own incoming mail channel, work on requests in the portal, and still work in JIRA Core as licensed users. Here's a quick doc covering how licensing works:

https://confluence.atlassian.com/servicedesk024/jira-service-desk-licensing-753402776.html

Keep in mind, the word 'customer' totally applies to internal customers as well, so anyone submitting requests is considered a customer in a Service Desk.