Help needed in configuring participants for issues

[Greg Mills]

Hi all, this is my first post here and I'm relatively new to JSM having moved over from Zendesk a few weeks ago. I'd like to set up some automation using the Recurring Tasks plugin so that it is possible to automatically schedule issues such as certificate expirations, etc. This plugin simply uses the issue workflows we have, which are the ones Jira provides as standard.

Our customers are our colleagues in these cases, so they need to be kept informed of progress and be able to participate in conversations using email. They don't need to use the Jira web portal, nor should they require an agent licence.

I have read the guide on adding participants and it seems that I need to a) create a group of users b) create a role then c) apply the permission to browse projects to that role. I have done this, but things still aren't working as I expected. I have used the permission helper to check the user permissions and this tells me that they do not have the ability to browse projects.

Have I misunderstood the way JSM works or have I perhaps got something wrong in the setup?

Thanks

[Lisa Grau · Accepted solution]

Hi Greg, welcome to the Atlassian community!

In order to browse a project, the user usually needs a Jira license. If you add users to a group, the group needs Application access and they will consume a license.

You can add the users as customers directly to the service management project and assign the project role "Service Desk customers" to the Browse project permission.

[Greg Mills]

Hi Lisa, thanks for your help on this. With Zendesk, our colleagues didn't require a licence in order to interact with our agents and I wish to duplicate this situation in JSM, so it's important that my users are able to interact using only emails with my team.

Can you point me to a guide that describes the process in your final sentence?

Thanks

[Lisa Grau]

When accessing your Jira service management project, you can see a link with the name "Customers" in the left navigation bar. You can add your colleagues as a customer there. (Simply click "add customer").

Service Management Customers do not require an active license for Jira, but they can still be selected as authors and request participants. They can send an email to the service desk and interact with the agents via email (answer to ticket mails etc.).

[Dirk Ronsmans]

Hey @Greg Mills ,

The distinction between a customer and an agent can sometimes be confusing.

A customer indeed does not need a license and will as @Lisa Grau says be added directly on the project. The servicedesk customer role exists by default and should already be in your project under the browser project persmission.

The customer itself will not be added there but under the "Customers" menu (left side bar of your project). When they are a customer they will be automatically granted that role and be a "customer" to your Service Desk project.

They will be then able to interact by email or on the portal (you can block the portal access in general if you want)

You can find a lot more information about it here: 

https://support.atlassian.com/jira-service-management-cloud/docs/add-and-remove-customers/

[Greg Mills]

Hi @Dirk Ronsmans , thanks for the additional info. I will play around with this and see where it takes me.

Thanks to you and @Lisa Grau 

[Greg Mills]

Hi guys, one more question if you don't mind? I've added the user in as a client and when creating the issue I have added them the the request participants field. They haven't recieved any emails though. How do I add the user to the issue in such a way that they get all notifications? Thanks

[Dirk Ronsmans]

Hey @Greg Mills ,

So you added the person as a "customer and you added him in the "Request Participants" field right?

Do you also have a "customer request type" on the issue? 

The customer getting mails is based on the "customer notifications" in your project (which is separate from the regular notifications) but a lot of this is based on the fact whether the issue has a customer request type linked to it.

(if you used the portal you would also need to add it before it shows up on the portal even if you added them as a request participant, the request participants field is also the one that gets filled in when you use the "share" function on the portal)

[Greg Mills]

I am using the change request type that comes with JSM. I haven't configured any of my own request types yet. I will try using a different request type and see what happens.

I also just got this warning, probably since I assigned brows projects to the Service Desk Customer role. I will revert it.

[Dirk Ronsmans]

Yeah, the role should be a build in one. ( service project customer - portal access)

also the Change type is an issue type and not a request type

https://support.atlassian.com/jira-service-management-cloud/docs/create-a-request-type/

[Greg Mills]

I've actually noticed that the Customers section seems to contain all of our staff, including their previous email addresses from old company names along with every client we've ever interacted with. Are these contacts being added automatically perhaps? Anyway, all of the users I have been trying to add as participants are in there already.

[Greg Mills]

I still haven't solved this problem by the way. Does anyone else have any suggestions?

[Dirk Ronsmans]

Hi @Greg Mills ,

it is indeed possible that these users are auto added, either thru an Atlassian Access integration or if they ever had contact with your helpdesk (thru email) it could be that you have the "create users" enabled so it adds them when they send their first email to the helpdesk

I think we need to get back to the core issue here.

• How far did you get in adding them? It seems you have them now as customers?
• Do you see the issue on the portal? (that's often a good indicator it's set up correctly)
• Do they get notifications/or not? did you check the customer notifications on your project?

I feel like we started mixing multiple issues here and don't have a clear picture anymore of what is working now/still broken/unknown

I'm happy to assist further but we'll have to tackle these points one by one.

[Greg Mills]

@Dirk Ronsmans I think you're right, we have lost focus on the core issue. All of our users are listed in Customers and despite adding a user to the Request Participants field, they still do not receive email notifications when the ticket is created or updated.

These are the settings in Customer Notifications. Note, I get an error when I go into this section, but it isn't clear what the error is pointing out?

Thanks