Emails sent to Jira Service Desk O365 Inbox Creating Duplicate Tickets

[Harry Rumble]

Hello,

One of our Jira Service Desks, intermittently is creating duplicate service requests from one email. 

The email is sent only once, and only shows up in the audit log once, processed successfully. However, the email is creating 2 separate service requests created a few minutes apart.  

I do not see anything in the audit log to indicate an issue, as the email processes just once. 

We have an incoming mail handler POP/IMAP configured for the inbox, as well as the mail handler for the Jira project itself. We also use JEMH (version 3.1.4) to handle notifications.

I have read some places that the Jira system (POP/IMAP I'm guessing?) is not needed, and by removing it this issue can be resolved.

Is this correct?

If the system mail handler was removed, but the project one left-will all emails sent to the inbox still generate service requests tickets as configured?

Thank you!

Harry 

[Andrew Laden · Accepted solution]

When you have Jira Service desk, there are 2 completely separate inbound mail handling systems. 

1. The mail handling for core Jira. This is what you set up using the Administration -> System -> Incoming mail
2. The Service Desk mail handler. This is configured Per service Desk project under project settings -> Email Requests.

You do not want those pointing to the same mailbox. They each should be using their own. 

The Service desk mail handler is generally what your customers use to interact with jira, while the Core mail handler would be for your agents. (if you want them to be able to respond to tickets via email)

If you just have the service desk mail handler, you would probaby be fine. But you should test both and understand the difference.

[Harry Rumble]

Thank you Andrew!

When looking at the Jira mail handler in the POP/IMAP Mail Servers, would I be looking at the "Hostname" or "User Name" to determine if this is pointing to the same email as the Service Desk handler?

On top of these two, we also use JEMH (as we have external customer requests coming in as well), which points to the same email as the Service Desk handler. 

The mail handler is using JEMH profile also.

[Andrew Laden]

Both hostname and username. Hostname would be your mail server, and username is what mailbox you are connecting to .

In jira core, the mail handing config is broken into 2 parts.

1: "Pop/IMAP Mail Servers" This is where you configure the actual connection to the mail server. (lets call this a mailbox connection, though jira calls it a server, which isnt quite correct) By itself it doesn't do anything.

2: Mail Handlers. Here you attach a "mailbox connection" to a mail handler that tells it what to do with the mail.

Generally for ease of configuration, you want a 1 to 1 matching. Each Server only has 1 mail handler processing its mails. (see note at end) 

So having 2 mail handlers pointing to the same server isn't a good idea.

I use JEMH as well. Pretty much as I described. The customers interact with the Jira Service Desk mail handler, which (at the time I implemented) handled the customer permissions a little better. And the agents use the JEMH mail handler to allow them to use directives to help process tickets. (note that JEMH has gotten a lot better at dealing with customers. I'll probably switch to it at some point for the customer side as well)

Note that the Jira Service Desk mail config combines these. There is only 1 Service Desk mail handler, so there is less to configure.

(Note; In the mail handler config, you can specify a folder other then INBOX to look at. If you mail server can sort mails into different inboxes, you can use this to have a single mail server config, but use multiple mail handlers against it. This is a little more efficient but more complex to maintain on the mail server side)

[Harry Rumble]

Thank you so much  Andrew! 

If I can confirm my understanding; since our Jira Mail Handler is using the same email inbox/account as the Service Desk Project mail handler, the emails being received are creating duplicate tickets because each of these configurations are receiving the email/processing for ticket creation? (Since they are separate, one for Jira core, one for Service Desk project, they are not connected and thus creating tickets individually)

Our other service desk project, is using our general Jira email inbox in it's Service Desk project mail handler, I;m thinking if the other service desk uses this as well, our problem may be solved. 

[Andrew Laden]

Sounds about right. The reason you are only seeing it sometimes is that one of the mail handlers deletes the mails from the mailbox, while the other may be leaving it there. (I think there is actually a bug related to this behavior.) or could just be a race condition. if the two mail handlers are trying to process the mail at the same time.

Not quite sure I understand your 2nd question.

But in general. 1 mailbox - 1 mail server config - 1 mail handler. 

[Harry Rumble]

One last question, could both service desk projects use the same mailbox for the email request/email channel?

If not, then I assume our previous admin set it up as it is currently; but using the same mailbox as the other started these issues. 

[Andrew Laden]

No. each service desk project should have its own mailbox/address. Else how would Jira know which project to create the issue in when it gets a mail into that box?