So far, we have learned how to use and interact with JIRA directly from its web interface through a browser. However, you are not restricted only to a web browser; you can also communicate with JIRA through e-mails.
One powerful feature of JIRA is its ability to update the users of their issue's progress automatically through e-mails, and also to create and comment on issues based on e-mails sent from the user. This provides you with a whole new option of how you and your users can interact with JIRA. By the end of the chapter, you will have learned the following:
- How to set up a mail server in JIRA
- What a mail handler is
- How to create issues and comments by sending e-mails to JIRA
- Events and how they are related to notifications
- How to configure JIRA to send out notifications based on events
E-mails have become one of the most important communication tools in today's world. Businesses and individuals rely on e-mails to send and receive information around the world almost instantly. So, it should come as no surprise that JIRA comes fully equipped and integrated with e-mail support.
JIRA's e-mail support comes in several flavors. First, JIRA can send out e-mails to users to notify them about actions being performed on their issues, to keep them updated with their issues' progress. Second, JIRA can also poll mailboxes for e-mails and create issues and comments based on its content. The third feature is the ability for users to create and subscribe to filters to set up feeds in JIRA (we will discuss filters in Chapter 9, Searching, Reporting, and Analysis). These features open up a whole new dimension on how users can interact with JIRA.
In the following sections, we will look at what you need to do to enable JIRA's powerful e-mail support and also explore the tools and options at your disposal to configure JIRA to "e-mail it" your way. The following diagram shows how JIRA interacts with various mail servers:
