Frequently Asked Questions for Jira Service Desk (AKA JSD FAQ)
Just the FAQs!
Welcome to the Community, and this Focused-FAQ! Here, we've pulled together some of the most frequently asked questions associated with Jira Service Desk (JSD).
We hope that this FAQ is useful to you, but it can never replace the hundreds of questions and answers found on the Atlassian Community. So, if you don't find what you're looking for, dive deeper using the search function (the magnifying glass at the top of any page).
Table of contents:
- Where is the "Features" option? I want to enable the Roadmap feature.
- How do I change my current project to a Next-gen project?
- We use JSW currently for our development initiatives. If a JSD issue comes in that requires development should I move that issue to the appropriate JSW project. If not, why not and what would be an alternative?
- Emails are not creating issues in my project, what are the possible causes?
- How do I reset SLAs?
- How can I allow Jira Software users to view JSD issues, boards, dashboards, etc. without having to make them Agents and incur additional costs?
- How can issues be shared between customers?
- Why can't I create a Kanban board for my project? When I try to do so my project isn't available in the Location dropdown list.
- I have multiple JSD projects that are managed by the same agents. How can I create queues spanning my projects so that the agents don't need to switch between projects?
- Why is the 'request type' field empty on some issues in a Service Desk project?
- Thank you to our contributors
- Don't see your question here?
Question: Where is the "Features" option? I want to enable the Roadmap feature.
Answer : Features and Roadmap are associated with the new Next-gen projects. If you are using a Classic project you will not see the Features option nor be able to enable the Roadmap Feature. Finally, this only applies to Cloud as Next-gen and Roadmap are Cloud only features.
Question: How do I change my current project to a Next-gen project?
Answer: At this time you cannot change your Classic project to Next-gen. However, you can manually move your issues via bulk-move. Migrate from a next-gen and classic project explains the steps. A word of caution before proceeding: Next-gen is intentionally a simplified project template and does not provide the flexibility and many of the powerful features of Classic projects. It might be a good idea to create a test Next-gen and get comfortable with what it can and cannot do before moving. That said, you can always move them back using the same steps. :-)
Question: We use JSW currently for our development initiatives. If a JSD issue comes in that requires development should I move that issue to the appropriate JSW project. If not, why not and what would be an alternative?
Answer: Generally speaking you do not want to move JSD issues from the original project. The reason for this is that JSD is meant to maintain a clear communication channel with the customer so that they stay up-to-date on their requests. If you were to move the issue from JSD to JSW the customer then they would lose visibility in the portal and any updates would have to be manually done (email, phone, etc).
Atlassian has considered this requirement in JSD. You can create a linked issue (clone) of the JSD issue within the appropriate JSW project. You can also use Automation to have the JSD issue updated as the JSW issue is updated. Escalate Jira Service Desk issues to other Jjira teams is a good article that further explains this.
Question: Emails are not creating issues in my project, what are the possible causes?
Answer: There could be a number of reasons for this and we have included the most common causes here. If none of these solves your problem, you are encouraged to search the Community for other possible solutions or ask our community experts.
- JSD has its own email channel functionality that is not the same as what is used in JSW. While for JSW you set up mail handlers under the system admin section, JSW has the concept of setting up an email channel at the project level so that each project can have a unique email for creating issues. In Cloud go to Project > Project settings > Email requests.
- Ensure that the Email Puller is enabled at the system admin level: Admin > System > Global Mail Settings.
- If you are using your own email rather than one provided by Atlassian for each project in Cloud, verify that the emails are being received in the inbox associated with the email. Log into the mailbox and monitor to see if the mail arrives and if so, if it is processed and removed. If the email never arrives, then something is wrong outside of Jira as the email isn't being received. If the email is received but never is removed then Jira is not pulling the email, so check all your email settings.
- A less common cause is if fields aren't configured as required for the email request type. So while the email will be processed, issue create will fail. Solution: remove the required setting for any fields.
Question: How do I reset SLAs?
Answer: Currently it is not possible to reset the SLA. While there is a suggestion open to allow for this (JSDCLOUD-194/JSDSERVER-194) resetting the SLA is almost always a bad idea. SLAs should be sacred and if they are correctly designed and configured in JSD they shouldn't need to be reset. Note: often a project will have different SLAs based upon, say, issuetype; if the issuetype is changed then the SLA's 'endpoint' will adjust accordingly.
Question: How can I allow Jira Software users to view JSD issues, boards, dashboards, etc. without having to make them Agents and incur additional costs?
Answer: JSD has a different user model and associated pricing structure. The primary users are:
- Agents: Users who work on issues
- Customers: Users who create issues
However, if you are also using JSW then invariably you will want to provide access to some JSW users to be able to "collaborate" on JSD issues. This can be accomplished using either Groups or Roles.
- Groups: Under the User Management settings create a new group, e.g. project-collaborators (where projectis your JSD project key). Add the desired users to the group. Next go to Project > Project settings > Permissions and add project-collaborators to the desired permissions, e.g. browse, comment, etc.
- Roles: JSD provides a means of placing people into roles. Roles include: Administrators, Service Desk Team, Developers, etc. For JSW collaboration you can add the JSW user to the project and add them to the Developers role. Just as with Groups, you can then update the permissions to include the role on the desired permissions.
Question: How can issues be shared between customers?
Answer: JSD provides this capability through the Organizations feature. Organizations is analogous to Groups but is unique to JSD. This feature allows you to group customers by organization. In so doing, customers within an organization can then elect to share an issue they created with others. This can be done either in the portal using the Share link or email via CC.
There is one other setting you may wish to enable, which will notify all users within the organization whenever an issue is created by a user in the organization. This setting is found under Project > Project settings > Customer notifications > Organization added. Please be aware that this could result in unwanted emails so be sure to give this some thought and discuss with the customer first.
You can read more about how to set up Organizations in the following articles: Cloud, Server.
Question: Why can't I create a Kanban board for my project? When I try to do so, my project isn't available in the Location dropdown list.
Answer: The issue is likely due to the type of project that you are attempting to associate to the Kanban board. You actually can create a Kanban board for any project type, with the exception of Next-gen, but you have to locate that board under your profile rather than natively within the project. To do this, in the Location dropdown scroll to the bottom and you will see your profile. Choose that for your location then complete setting up the board. While the board won't immediately show in the sidebar of your project you can use "Add item" to create a link to your board.
Question: I have multiple JSD projects that are managed by the same agents. How can I create queues spanning my projects so that the agents don't need to switch between projects?
Answer: While you can't modify JSD queues to span multiple JSD projects there are options you can consider. Here are a few suggestions:
- Consider an addon, e.g. Queues for Jira Service Desk. Disclaimer: I do not personally use this nor am I affiliated in any way with the author. Just something I'm aware of from participating in the Community.
- Build a Kanban board. Queues, like Kanban boards, are basically a representations of a filtered list. You can easily create a filter to cover all your JSD projects and set up a Kanban using that filter. Your agents can use the Kanban to manage the issues. With Kanban you can then create swimlanes to behave as queues and you can create quick filters so that agents can quickly filter on their issues or unassigned issues that need to be triage.
- Create a dashboard to manage your JSD projects. Similar to the Kanban board approach, a dashboard can be used to provide a very powerful service desk view that your agents can use to work their issues and has the added benefit of providing some nice graphical representation of how things are going across your projects.
Question: Why is the 'request type' field empty on some issues in a Service Desk project?
Answer: This can happen when users are creating issues in a Service Desk project without using the customer portal. If you have licensed Jira users that have access to that project, they could create issues there directly in Jira (without using the customer portal). But creating issues this way won't place any value in the request type field. There is a KB that could help use JSD automation to avoid this problem Automatically set customer request type when issue is created via Jira. But ultimately, your licensed Jira users should be made aware that this isn't the proper way to create requests in a Service Desk project.
Thank you to our contributors: @Monique van den Berg , @Daniel Eads, @Andrew Heinzer, @Angelica da Luz, and @Jack Brickey!
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Jack Brickey
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