Emails Requests failing

[David Twomey]

If a customer sends an email to the default email address associated with my Service Desk, they get an email failure with the message in the logs of

"You don't have permission to access this service project."

If i then add the customer email first to the Customers list then the customer is able to send an email and a support ticket is created.  


My settings look correct:  I had thought with these settings, anyone can send an email and get a ticket filed, not just assigned customers.  I believe JSM should be auto-creating the user. 

On the Jira Service Management side i have 



and 



and on the Project settings side i have


Any ideas if there is anotehr setting somewhere i've missed?

[Mikael Sandberg · Accepted solution]

Hi @David Twomey,

Welcome to Atlassian Community!

On the customer sharing settings, change the setting so that customers can manually enter email address. This will create a new customer if they are not one already. The way you currently have it set in the project the customer would have to be invited first before they can send in a ticket via email.

[David Twomey]

Thank you - That did the trick.

[David Twomey]

Thank you Jayesh.  My settings are different.  If you look at the Customer Permissions on the Project level, i only have 2 options, Open and Restricted.  See screenshots above.  I don't have the "Who can send requests" option

[Jayesh Raghuvanshi]

@David Twomey 

this is a common sticking point in Jira Service Management (JSM) email channel setups.
From what you describe, the behavior you’re seeing ("You don't have permission to access this service project") usually happens because of project customer permissions, not just the email channel itself. Let’s break it down:

Key things to check

Customer permissions in the Service Project

Go to Project settings → Customer permissions.

Look for "Who can send requests" or "Who can access the portal and send requests".

You want this set to either:

Anyone on the web (no login required) – if you want truly open email creation, or

Anyone with an account on this Jira site – if you want users to be auto-created (JSM will create accounts as they email in).

⚠️ If it’s set to "Customers added by agents and admins", then only pre-approved customers can email in — which matches the issue you’re having.

Email channel settings

Go to Project settings → Email requests.

Make sure the default email address is connected and working.

Check that it says "Requests are created for new people".

If it doesn’t, that means it’s restricted by your customer permission settings.

Global customer creation setting

As a Jira org/site admin, go to Jira settings → Products → Jira Service Management → Configuration.

Check the option for "Customer permissions" → "Anyone can email the service desk or raise a request in the portal".

If it’s instead locked to "Users must be invited" (site setting), JSM won’t auto-create customers.

Atlassian Access / domain restrictions (if your site has them)

If your org is using Atlassian Access with domain allow/deny rules, JSM may block auto-creation of external accounts.

In that case, only users in allowed domains (or pre-added customers) can raise requests by email.

Why you’re seeing the error

Right now, your project customer permissions are probably set to “Customers added by agents and admins.”

That means when someone external emails, JSM tries to create the ticket, but rejects them because they’re not in the customer list.

✅ Fix

Go to Project settings → Customer permissions.

Change "Who can send requests" to:

Anyone with an account on this Jira site (auto-creates customers when they email in),

or Anyone on the web (more open, no account creation required for portal access).

Verify the global JSM configuration doesn’t block customer auto-creation.