Use YouTrack as a Help Desk

Process Overview

To configure and use a YouTrack project as a help desk, follow these steps:

tip

Requires permissions: Low-level Admin Write

1. Enable Email Notifications in YouTrack.

2. Set Up a Project for Your Help Desk.

3. Configure the Mailbox Integration.

Enable Email Notifications in YouTrack

First, make sure that email notifications are enabled and configured correctly on your server.

• If you are using YouTrack InCloud and haven't changed the default settings, skip this step and continue with Set Up a Project for Your Help Desk. Email notifications are enabled and configured by default in your InCloud instance.

• If you are have changed the default email notification settings in your YouTrack InCloud instance, or are using YouTrack Standalone edition, verify that email notification is enabled and the connection to an email server is configured.

If you use a Google mail server to send email notifications, use the same email address as your global From address and your help desk notifications. Google does not let you use a substitute email address. If you use an email address as the From address in your project that differs from the address in the global settings, the mail server does not deliver the messages.

You don't have to do anything special here, just follow the basic setup instructions and test the connection to the mail server. For specific instructions, see Notifications.

When email notifications are enabled and configured in YouTrack, you are ready to create and configure your help desk project.

Set Up a Project for Your Help Desk

The project that you use for your help desk should be configured differently from a project that is used for a development team. You probably want to use a different set of custom fields, and will need to set the email address that is used for notifications in the project.

You also need to attach a workflow to the project that manages email notifications. To learn more about this workflow, see Notify Multiple Unregistered Users.

The configuration of the project is specific to this use case, so we describe it here in some detail.

Configure the Mailbox Integration

The last step is to configure the mailbox integration for the help desk project.

The configuration is specific to this use case, so we describe it here in some detail. For general instructions, see Mailbox Integration.

When you have finished with the configuration of the mailbox integration, you're all set. You are ready to use YouTrack as a help desk and handle incoming requests that are sent to the email address for your customer support team.

Key Configuration Settings

The configuration for the mailbox integration requires setup on a few different pages in YouTrack. If you're having problems and need to verify the setup, check that the following settings are configured correctly.

The Help Desk in Action

Now that you've configured YouTrack to function as a help desk, let's see how it works. Here is how YouTrack handles a sample customer request.

1. Your customer sends an email message to your help desk address.

   

2. The email message is processed by the mailbox integration. A new issue is created based on the email message.

   

   YouTrack stores the email address of the customer in the issue.

3. A support engineer adds a comment to the issue to respond to the customer request.

   

4. The customer receives an email message that includes the new comment.

   

5. The customer replies to the email message.

   

6. YouTrack adds the text in the reply as a comment in the original issue.

   

From the customers' point of view, all they do exchange emails with your support team. Your support team simply reads and adds comments to the issue. Plus, you get to take advantage of using a full-featured issue tracking system.

Enhancements

This setup shows you how to set up YouTrack to manage support requests. You can configure your YouTrack system to support additional use cases and match your support routine.

Review this section for additional features that you want to activate or configure in your project.

var entities = require('@jetbrains/youtrack-scripting-api/entities');

exports.rule = entities.Issue.onChange({
  title: 'Remove additional feedback emails from All related emails',
  guard: function(ctx) {
    return ctx.issue.fields.isChanged(ctx.allEmails);
  },
  action: function(ctx) {
    var fields = ctx.issue.fields;
    var feedbackEmail = 'email@test.com';
    fields.allEmails = fields.allEmails.replace(feedbackEmail, '');
  },
  requirements: {
    allEmails: {
      name: 'All related emails',
      type: entities.Field.stringType
    }
  }
});

var entities = require('@jetbrains/youtrack-scripting-api/entities');
var workflow = require('@jetbrains/youtrack-scripting-api/workflow');
var notifications = require('@jetbrains/youtrack-scripting-api/notifications');

exports.rule = entities.Issue.onChange({
  title: workflow.i18n('Collect related emails on issue creation'),
  guard: function(ctx) {
    return ctx.issue.becomesReported;
  },
  action: function(ctx) {
    var issue = ctx.issue;
    var lastMessageRelatedEmailsStr = issue.fields.lastEmails;
    var isBlank = function(str) {
      return !str || str.trim().length === 0;
    };
    var lastMessageRelatedEmails = isBlank(lastMessageRelatedEmailsStr) ? [] : lastMessageRelatedEmailsStr.split(' ');

    if (lastMessageRelatedEmails.length) {
      var fromServiceEmail = issue.project.notificationEmail;
      var isEmailAllowed = function(email) {
        return email && email.length && email.toUpperCase() !== fromServiceEmail.toUpperCase();
      };
      var allRelatedEmailsStr = issue.fields.allEmails;
      var allRelatedEmails = isBlank(allRelatedEmailsStr) ? [] : allRelatedEmailsStr.split(' ');

      var newUsersEmails = lastMessageRelatedEmails.filter(function(email) {
        return isEmailAllowed(email) && allRelatedEmails.indexOf(email) === -1;
      });
      if (newUsersEmails.length) {
        issue.fields.allEmails = allRelatedEmails.concat(newUsersEmails).join(' ');
      }
      issue.fields.lastEmails = null;

      var message = {
          fromName: 'YouTrack',                  // set whichever name you prefer
          toEmails: lastMessageRelatedEmails.slice(0, 1),
          subject: '[YouTrack] New Issue',       // set a subject you like
          body: 'The text of the notification'   // set a full body of your notification
        };
      notifications.sendEmail(message, issue);
    }
  },
  requirements: {
    lastEmails: {
      name: 'Last message related emails',
      type: entities.Field.stringType
    },
    allEmails: {
      name: 'All related emails',
      type: entities.Field.stringType
    }
  }
});