Need advice on setting up email handlers

[Michael Walkley]

What we want:

• Incoming emails/replies to create comments on existing tickets if ticket number is in subject.
• Incoming emails without ticket number do nothing (or autoreply with a response).
• One email address to be associated with multiple projects.

Do I...

1. Set up "Email requests" for only 1 service desk (Project Settings > Email requests)? Will this be able to handle emails sent with ticket numbers for different projects?
2. Set up "Email requests" for each service desk? If I do this will I need a separate email address for each service desk?
3. Set up a global Mail Handler for Incoming Mail (Admin > System > Incoming Mail)? This seems to not work properly with service desks/service desk customers.
4. Use a combination of the above options?
5. Do something else entirely?

I guess I'm a bit confused about when to use a global vs a service desk mail handler or if they can/should be used at the same time.
We had a global mail handler process everything just fine prior to upgrading from 6.3 to 7.0+ (7.12). After the upgrade it seems like the global mail handler can't process some of the incoming emails properly due to customer vs user permissions.

At the moment I'm leaning towards Option 1 (if it can parse emails into different projects), and then deleting our current global mail handler.

Resources I've used:
https://confluence.atlassian.com/adminjiraserver/creating-issues-and-comments-from-email-938847641.html
https://confluence.atlassian.com/servicedeskserver/receiving-requests-by-email-939926303.html

[Andy Heinzer]

Jira is not designed to handle the single email address used across multiple projects.  It has been requested in the past in a series of feature requests but each time these have been closed as something that won't be implemented into the product.

If this is something you want, I would recommend looking into a 3rd party product like the Enterprise Email Handler for Jira (JEMH).  While I have not used this plugin personally, from their overview page, it appears to be something that this plugin can help you achieve in Jira.

In reference to your question about using Jira Core mail handlers in Jira Service Desk projects:  It is possible to use a Core mail handler in a JSD project, but it tends to complicate the way Service Desk handles requests to a point where I don't actually recommend admins use a core handler in a JSD project.

To follow a similar question in https://community.atlassian.com/t5/Jira-questions/Can-I-configure-multiple-mail-handlers-for-the-same-email-for/qaq-p/652081 I would agree with Brian's response that we don't recommend trying to setup multiple mail handlers that use the same address.

[Michael Walkley]

Hi Andrew,

Thank you for the clarification. I'm still curious on what would happen if I carry out my scenario #1. 

If I create ONE service desk email handler in ONE project that 1. creates new requests from emails without ticket numbers and 2. creates comments for emails with ticket numbers; will it only create comments in that one project? Or will it be able to create comments for tickets in other projects?

For example: Let's say I have 2 JSD projects with the keys PR and QA. I set the email handler up on my PR desk. An email comes in with the subject "RE: QA-5628 Something's Broken". Will the handler add the email body to QA-5628 as a comment?

Unfortunately I am limited in being able to test these scenarios out because the email connections are of course only on our production instance.

Thanks,

-Michael W.