Dear Work Therapist - jira notifications

[Alexander Pappert]

I know that jira sometimes sends a lot of mails about edited issues to my team members.

Why is it so hard for them to

• just read the mail 2-5 seconds, see that nothing important has changed and just delete the "spam"
• create Mail filters

I do the same and as the admin, I get a lot more mails and can handle it.

[Ignacio Aredez]

Perhaps a guide on how to work/use/configure the notifications would help them.

[Alexander Pappert]

I have a small guide for this ..............

[Hana Kučerová]

I like these notifications. I like to be informed how are my issues doing and what's new. Am I weird?

Maybe people feel some sort of pressure to handle all these emails, no matter if they sorted/filtered or not.

[Alexander Pappert]

Pressure of a lot unread mails is a very good point.

Even if they should know it after >2 years, that mostly of the jira mails is just some short info/spam, and no work task.

[Christine P. Dela Rosa]

I also have work blocks on my calendar for reviewing this stuff. Because, organizing emails and reviewing notifs takes time that (I think) workers should take into account.

[Christine P. Dela Rosa]

Dear @Alexander Pappert

It sounds like your admin role has prepared you for content consumption and organization in a way that may not come naturally to others. So first off: congratulations. In my experience, many people don't have rituals for themselves that allow them to manage the many sources of new information thrown at them.

From your response to @Ignacio Aredez, it sounds like you have a guide for notification management that might help others. I'd suggest sharing that widely with team members. Personally, that's not a way to signal that other people need to be better about managing emails. Instead, it's you sharing your expertise with those who could use the help.

And while you're at it, please share your guide here. I bet there are others in the group who might be able to apply your tips themselves.

Best,

Christine

[Ignacio Aredez]

@Christine P. Dela Rosa I was just giving him an idea where he could start to look for a solution.

@Alexander Pappert  Unfortunately I don't have a guide, a few times I helped teams with this topic and the best advice I can give you is to talk to them and try to find a balance. Maybe implementing a report based on a JQL filter that only includes what is really relevant could help you to go another step forward. If you have any questions I will be happy to help you ;-)

[Alexander Pappert]

@Christine P. Dela Rosa 

unfortunately, my guide is in german, so it will not help all people.

I mostly took some screens of incoming mails with the different mail headers to show that there is some difference in the wording that you can use for filtering, like

• shared an issue with you
• mentioned you
• assigned issue to you
• edited the issue

Also, for my automation rules, which causes most of the "spam", I let them run under a user that is only reated for the rules, so you can filter about the username.

[Christine P. Dela Rosa]

Even though not in a guide, your notes in this comment section are helpful! Filtering out usernames and actually using the filters are not common practice and I agree that they're very helpful.

And for the German speakers out there, maybe they can contact you for that guide ;)

[Liam Green]

@Alexander Pappert I found that all my team just filtered them into trash - so I let them, and if they missed important notifications that was their issue!

[Alexander Pappert]

I know this one ....

But also then the complaints like "no one told this to me..."

[Christine P. Dela Rosa]

It's a dangerous game to filter things to trash. But you know what? I know so many people that do that! 

[nina_schmidt]

I feel you @Liam Green - we also have such colleagues

[Martin Bayer _MoroSystems_ s_r_o__]

I know it is not much responsible, but I'm admin for few instances of Jira and Confluence and my mailbox is quite overloaded with notifications. I do not trash these notifications automatically, but I check subject of the email and if it looks like some "generic" update, I simply remove it.

I check my Confluence tasks and Jira tasks on regular basis, so these instant notifications are not so important for me. We also have stand-up meetings with people who work on active projects which are most important. So even if I remove notification which can be helpful, I never got to the situation I totally forgot something important.

[Alexander Pappert]

When I read all your answers, I am happy that I am not alone with this problem.

For some projects, we work agile with daily/weekly meetings, so there is is ok to delete the "spam" mails.

For all other stuff, the member is responsible for his task, he got the information per mail, if he put it in spam and didn't read it, in the end it is his and not my problem. But when I sometimes hear the "no one told me this" and i know there has been a mail, I get enraged.

[Vero Rivas]

Hi @Alexander Pappert 

   Right Alexander, it's just a matter of organization and having a routine on how to manage these emails, then it doesn't take you more than 5 minutes a day to review everything

   Like you, I use rules and I'm doing great

Cheers