Notifications associate events (both system and custom) to e-mail recipients. When an event is fired and picked up, e-mails will be sent out. Notification types define recipients of e-mails. For example, you can set them to only send e-mails to a specific user or all members from a given user group. You can add multiple notifications to a given event.
JIRA ships with a comprehensive list of notification types (that is, the recipients) that will cover many of your needs. The following table lists all the notification types available and how they work:
|
Notification type |
Description |
|
Current Assignee |
This is the current assignee of the issue. |
|
Reporter |
This is the reporter of the issue (usually the person who originally created the issue). |
|
Current User |
This is the user who fired the event. |
|
Project Lead |
This is the lead of the project the issue belongs to. |
|
Component Lead |
This is the lead of the component the issue belongs to. |
|
Single User |
This states that any user that exists in JIRA. |
|
Group |
This states that all users that belong to the specified group. |
|
Project Role |
This states that all users that belong to the specified project role. |
|
Single Email Address |
This states any e-mail address. |
|
All Watchers |
This states that all users that are watching this issue. |
|
User Custom Field Value |
This states that the users specified in the user-type custom field. For example, if you have a User Picker custom field called Recipient, the user selected in the custom field will receive notifications if he/she has access to the issue. |
|
Group Custom Field Value |
This states that all users that belong to the group in the group-type custom field. For example, if you have a Group Picker custom field called Approvers, all users from the group (with access to the issue) selected in the custom field will receive notifications. |
As you can see, the list includes a wide range of options from issue reporters to values contained in custom fields. Basically, anything that can be represented as a user in JIRA can have notifications set up.
If a user belongs to more than one notification for a single event, JIRA will make sure that only one e-mail will be sent so the user does not receive duplicates. In order for a user to receive notifications, the user must have permission to view the issue. The only exception to this is when using the Single Email Address option (we will discuss security in Chapter 9, Securing JIRA). If the user does not have permission to view the issue, JIRA will not send a notification e-mail.
We will look at how you can add notifications to events so that users can start receiving e-mails; however, before that, you need to first take a look at the notification scheme.