Compensating for Jira: Alert tone for new tickets

[Christopher Watson]

How to get a sound alert whenever a new ticket is created within your Jira Service desk

Hi guys. After much stress and having to find a solution for this on my own, I figure I would add back to the community and help others in need get past Jiras' complete, total, nightmarish and infuriating failures.

I will advise below how to get a sound alert whenever a new ticket is created within your Jira Service desk (because this is apparently not a built-in feature).

Important to note:

• Jira WILL NOT send emails to non-Jira users. Why? It's Jira, that's why, give up.
• You will require two email accounts and the ability to install chrome extensions for this to work.
• You will also need to be a Jira admin, or at least have elevated permissions within the Jira Service Desk environment.
• This applies specifically to Jira Servicedesk cloud. Hopefully, this will help for other versions as well, though the steps may differ. 

Preparing host Steps:

1. Choose the machine (with equipped speakers) that you would like to use for the alert.
2. Create a Gmail account for this device, preferably within your organisation
3. Sign in to google chrome with this devices account and enable sync
4. Download and install the "Checker Plus for Gmail" chrome extension
5. Sign in to the devices Gmail account through the extension

Preparing Jira Steps:

1. Go into your Jira Service desk 'Project'.
2. Go into 'Project' settings.
3. Scroll down to, and click on "Automation".
4. Click "Add Rule".
5. Click "Custom Rule".
6. Under "When this happens" click "Add Trigger".
7. From the drop-down, click "Issue created".
8. If you have a complex environment, you can click "Add condition" and specify additional conditions (such as ticket type, priority etc) to only send alerts for the tickets that you want. In this case, we have a "New" status that we select so we only get alerts for tickets labled "New".
9. Under "Then do this" click "Add action".
10. Click "Alert user" and select yourself or a target agent who will be our designated 'passthrough', and save.

(You would think this would be where you could simply select "Send an email" but no, Jira will not allow you to send an email to external addresses for some, archaic, mentally deficient reason.)

Preparing the passthrough:

1. You will need to login to the 'passthrough' email.
2. The exact method will vary depending on your environment, but we will need to setup a forward to the devices' email that we setup earlier.
3. In our environment, we have a filter to catch any email that is:

• FROM: The jira automated email address
• TO: our 'passthrough' user
• INCLUDED IN THE SUBJECT: The standard system-generated subject line, this can be edited within Jira to make it easier
• Marked as read immediately and archived so it never hits our 'passthrough' users inbox

Final steps:

• If all has gone as intended, the devices' Gmail account should be receiving a copy of the automated system message every time a new issue is created. If not, go through these steps again from the top and troubleshoot.
• You can now configure the chrome extension to play a sound file every time an email is received.
• The extension comes with a handful of pre-installed sounds, but also has the ability to upload custom files. I simply googled a royalty free sound library and chose an appropriate sound byte. I'd advise keeping the sound under two seconds in length (you will be hearing this sound thousands of times, I chose a short Harmonica trill.)
• I'd also advise raising a few test tickets to ensure the sound is playing as intended.

And there we go. I hope this will be of help to at least a few of you. The ultimate solution is to not use Atlassians' project management software they've mutilated and are trying to cram into a perverted facsimile of a ticketing system. However if not, at least here is one small assistance to help ease the pain. Feel free to add any other solutions you have found below. The only way we're going to survive this is to help each other. Good luck fellow IT comrades.

[csauls]

Yes!