JSD Email Reply Channel - Modified subject that still contains issue key generates new ticket

[Patrick S]

We have customers that sometimes modify the ticket subject upon reply, or have mail servers that modify the subject when it reaches them. This triggers their replies to us to generate new tickets. Is there any way to set JSD to trigger comments (instead of new tickets) when a ticket subject is anywhere in the email subject.
Here's an example of what we're running into.

// original subject
CUSTSVC-3334 Symptom ABC experienced by user XYZ

// subject when they reply
RE: [Non-DoD Source] CUSTSVC-3334 Symptom ABC experienced by user XYZ

In this example, the subject starting with "RE: [Non-DoD Source]", instead of "RE: CUSTSVC-3334" triggered a new ticket to be created.

Is there any way to have JIRA Service Desk scrape the entire subject for an issue key, instead of relying on starting with "RE: <proj>-<num>"?

[Rene C_ _Atlassian Support_ · Accepted solution]

Hello Patrick! When an email is received by JIRA (either Software or SD handler), the rules are as follows:

The subject  of an email message is examined for an existing issue key:

• If an issue key is found in the subject, the content of the email message's body is processed and added as a comment to the issue with that issue key.
• If an issue key is NOT found in the subject, the in-reply-to header  is examined:
  • If the email message is found to be a reply to another email message from which an issue was previously created, the body is processed and added as a comment to that issue.
  • If the email message is NOT found to be a reply, a new issue is created.

Any notification sent by JIRA originally includes the In-reply-to header, something similar to:

In-Reply-To: <JIRA.10500.1512631987000@Atlassian.JIRA>

and even if the subject is changed completely when sent back to JIRA, the rules mentioned will apply, and will not find the Issue key in the subject but will find the In-reply-to header and JIRA will know where to append the message.

So all you need to ensure is that the header is not removed from the email sent by JIRA by the customer's email servers, and JIRA will know what to do with the email when it comes back.

[Patrick S]

Thanks for all the details.  The original problem I noticed was that condition 1 was not triggering comments, but rather new tickets, so I was under the impression that the location of the issue key mattered, as that was the pattern observed at the time.

The problem actually stopped occurring the next day (confirmed in the Email Channel processing UI).  I wish I knew why it failed to begin with on the original emails, but the actual email log files have wrapped.  If it repeats, I'll open up a JIRA ticket with log results.

• If an issue key is found in the subject, the content of the email message's body is processed and added as a comment to the issue with that issue key.

[Rene C_ _Atlassian Support_]

Interesting. If you have any problems with the behavior of your JIRA instance we'll be happy to help at Atlassian Support.

[Muhammad Dadu]

We are facing a similar issue, I see requests created via email from another JSD instance not mapping to ours. I can clearly see the ticket number in the request created by our instance, but it's failing to connect the dots.