JIRA - Send email to anonymous user

Question

I'm trying to figure out a way to send an email to an anonymous user when one creates an issue through the email. What I need is for this anonymous user to receive a notification email when the issue was opened,commented and closed. According to their official documentation this can only be done if the creator is already a user in JIRA or if a user will be created on the fly. None of which works for me. The work-arounds that I found so far are:

1. JEMH - which promises this functionality but looks unstable, meaning it seems to break (at least for a little bit) with every JIRA update and no downtime is acceptable for me.
2. Writing my own script as was recommended in the similar thread

I have no problems writing my own script but I just wanted to be sure I won't be reinventing the wheel. Are there any other ways of doing this?

I'll be very greatful for any help.

Answer 1

I just noticed this question. JEMH has now evolved into a fully fledged commercial plugin, and has a mass of new features, some of which actually address supporting remote 'anonymous' users for issue creation, essentially turning JIRA into a fully capable email helpdesk solution. Specific template customization is available for this on a per-event basis.

Regarding breakages, staying at the 'latest' release gives developers absolutely no time to catchup. Play smart, give all developers a chance to catchup.

With the depths of JIRA API's that JEMH plumbs, breakages were unfortunately common, but now are less likely thanks to Atlassian stabilizing some core API's in 5.0+. Work also also underway to provide end-end integration testing, which is a mission in its own right!

Answer 2

Here is how I did it using the Script Runner pluging, I've told Jira to get emails from my mailbox, and create issues from them. Than, on the workflow, I saved the sender's email and name to a custom fields using the following script:

from com.atlassian.jira import ComponentManager
import re
cfm = ComponentManager.getInstance().getCustomFieldManager()

# read issue description
description = issue.getDescription()
if (description is not None) and ('Created via e-mail received from' in description):
    # extract email and name:
    if ('<' in description) and ('>' in description):
        # pattern [Created via e-mail received from: name <[email protected]>]
        # split it to a list
        description_list = re.split('<|>|:',description)
        list_length = len(description_list)
        for index in range(list_length-1, -1, -1):
            if '@' in description_list[index]:
                customer_email = description_list[index]
                customer_name = description_list[index - 1]
                break
    else:
        # pattern [Created via e-mail received from: [email protected]]
        customer_name = "Sir or Madam"
        # split it to a list  
        description_list = re.split(': |]',description)
        list_length = len(description_list)
        for index in range(list_length-1, -1, -1):
            if '@' in description_list[index]:
                customer_email = description_list[index]
                break

    # if the name isn't in the right form, switch it's places:
    if (customer_name[0] == '"') and (customer_name[-1] == '"') and (',' in customer_name):
        customer_name = customer_name[1:-1]
        i =  customer_name.index(',')
        customer_name = customer_name[i+2:]+" "+customer_name[:i]

    # insert data to issue fields
    issue.setCustomFieldValue(cfm.getCustomFieldObject("customfield_10401"),customer_email)
    issue.setCustomFieldValue(cfm.getCustomFieldObject("customfield_10108"),customer_name)

than, send the mail using the following script:

import smtplib,email
from smtplib import SMTP 
from email.MIMEMultipart import MIMEMultipart
from email.MIMEBase import MIMEBase
from email.MIMEText import MIMEText
from email import Encoders
import os
import re
from com.atlassian.jira import ComponentManager

customFieldManager = ComponentManager.getInstance().getCustomFieldManager()
cfm = ComponentManager.getInstance().getCustomFieldManager()

# read needed fields from the issue
key = issue.getKey()
#status = issue.getStatusObject().name
summary = issue.getSummary()
project = issue.getProjectObject().name

# read customer email address
toAddr = issue.getCustomFieldValue(cfm.getCustomFieldObject("customfield_10401"))
# send mail only if a valid email was entered
if (toAddr is not None) and (re.match('[A-Za-z0-9._%+-]+@(?:[A-Za-z0-9-]+\.)+[A-Za-z]{2,4}',toAddr)):
    # read customer name
    customerName = issue.getCustomFieldValue(cfm.getCustomFieldObject("customfield_10108"))
    # read template from the disk
    template_file = 'new_case.template'
    f = open(template_file, 'r')
    htmlBody = ""
    for line in f:
        line = line.replace('$$CUSTOMER_NAME',customerName)
        line = line.replace('$$KEY',key)
        line = line.replace('$$PROJECT',project)
        line = line.replace('$$SUMMARY',summary)
        htmlBody += line + '<BR>'


    smtpserver = 'smtpserver.com'
    to = [toAddr]
    fromAddr = '[email protected]'
    subject = "["+key+"] Thank You for Contacting Support team"
    mail_user = '[email protected]'
    mail_password = 'password'

    # create html email
    html = '<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" '
    html +='"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"><html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">'
    html +='<body style="font-size:12px;font-family:Verdana">'
    html +='<p align="center"><img src="http://path/to/company_logo.jpg" alt="logo"></p> '
    html +='<p>'+htmlBody+'</p>'
    html +='</body></html>'

    emailMsg = email.MIMEMultipart.MIMEMultipart('alternative')
    emailMsg['Subject'] = subject
    emailMsg['From'] = fromAddr
    emailMsg['To'] = ', '.join(to)
    emailMsg.attach(email.mime.text.MIMEText(html,'html'))

    # Send the email
    s = SMTP(smtpserver) # ip or domain name of smtp server
    s.login(mail_user, mail_password)   
    s.sendmail(fromAddr, [to], emailMsg.as_string())
    s.quit()

    # add sent mail to comments
    cm = ComponentManager.getInstance().getCommentManager()
    email_body = htmlBody.replace('<BR>','\n')
    cm.create(issue,'anonymous','Email was sent to the customer ; Subject: '+subject+'\n'+email_body,False)

content of new_case.template:

Dear $$CUSTOMER_NAME,

Thank you for contacting support team.

We will address your case as soon as possible and respond with a solution very quickly.

Issue key $$KEY has been created as a reference for future correspondence.

If you need urgent support please refer to our Frequently Asked Questions page at http://www.example.com/faq.

Thank you,

Support Team


Issue key: $$KEY
Issue subject: $$PROJECT
Issue summary: $$SUMMARY

All scripts should be attach to the workflow, to Create transition.The scripts are written using Jython, so it needs to be installed to use it.