Comparing the Classic and the Next Generation Mail Handlers

In this chapter we highlight the differences between the Classic Mail Handler and the Next Generation Mail Handler and explain those Next Generation Mail Handler features that match the previous Classic Mail Handler configurations.

For more information about these handlers, see the following sections:

Classic Mail Handlers

Next Generation Mail Handlers

Note: The Next Generation Mail Handler released in version 8.0.0 is different from the Classic Mail Handler in many aspects. There are some features that are not included in the Next Generation Mail handler, however, it has some additional features that cannot be found in the Classic Mail Handler.

Setup differences

Important: Keep in mind when using mail handlers is that there cannot be more than two mail handlers downloading emails from the same mail account unless they are filtering for different email aliases. This can cause problems as the handlers could ‘steal’ emails from each other, therefore it is essential to avoid.

Classic Mail Handler setup

Classic Email This Issue Mail Handlers are composed of three components. To configure a Classic Mail Handler you need to do the following:

Add an IMAP/POP server in Jira's Incoming Mail Page to get access to your inbox, download the emails and pass them to the handlers.
Add an “Email This Issue” type Mail Handler in Jira's Incoming Mail Page to hook into the Jira API that passes the downloaded email messages to the Email This Issue-side handler.
Add a Classic Mail Handler Context in Email This Issue administration to fully configure the rich functionality that comes with the add-on.

Note: These Jira mail handler connections cannot be used with our Next Generation Mail Handlers, only with our app's Classic Mail Handlers.

Next Generation Mail Handler setup

As opposed to the Classic Mail Handler, the Next Generation Mail handler is composed of two components. In this case, the handler is independent of Jira, therefore the two basic steps to configure a mail handler are different. To configure a Next Generation Mail Handler you need to do the following:

Add a Mail Account in Email This Issue administration to download the email messages and pass them to the handler.
Add a Next-Generation Mail Handler Context in Email This Issue administration to fully configure the rich functionality that comes with the add-on.

Note: These mail account connections cannot be used with Jira's built-in Incoming Mail Handlers, only with our app's Next Generation Mail Handlers.

Configuration differences

In this section, we are going to compare configuration items between the Classic and the Next-Generation Mail handlers. It is important to note the main differences between the two:

The Classic Mail Handler displays all configurations on a single page, making it harder to learn, harder to see through and understand.
The Next Generation Mail Handler is easier to learn and understand due to its 4-piece structure. With the use of conditions, complex project routings and conditional processing options are available.

Note: In this documentation we will not discuss edge cases, only draw a comparison between basic scenarios and map functionalities with similar behavior. In every following section, Classic Mail Handler functionalities will be explained first, followed by an explanation of the corresponding Next Generation Mail Handler action.

To configure either handler, go to INCOMING EMAILS --> Mail Handlers.

Differences in scope

Classic Mail Handler scope

In the case of the Classic mail handler, every handler is uniquely matched to a scope.

Project: to which the context applies. If left empty, context applies to all projects.
Issue Type: to which the context applies. If left empty, context applies to all issue types.

Next Generation Mail Handler scope

While the Classic Mail Handler has a set scope, the Next Generation Mail Handler does not have a singular, uniquely configured scope.

Routing emails to Projects and Issue Types can be done through separate actions, using conditions and creating new issues in the Create Issue action.

With these conditions and actions more than one project can be individually configured using only one handler.

Project: to which the mail handler applies in case a new issue has to be created. The issue will be created in the project that is selected here.
Issue Type: to which the mail handler applies in case a new issue has to be created. The issue will be created in the project that is selected above with the Issue Type that is selected here.
Request Type: only available for Service Management projects, not displayed for non-JSD projects.

Email processing differences

Classic Mail Handler email processing

The Email Processing Strategy in the Classic Mail Handler determines how the handler processes incoming emails. There are various strategies available out-of-the-box:

Create Or Comment Issues: either create a new issue or comment on it. It supports Split Regex (see below)
Create Or Comment Or Link Issues: either create a new issue or comment it if the issue matches the given JQL criteria, otherwise Create a new issue and link it. It supports Split Regex (see below).
Always Add Comments: find a related issue for each email and if found, comment it. It supports Split Regex (see below).
Always Create Issues: create new issues for all incoming emails.
Service Management Create or Comment
Create Issues or Email Log: No comments will be added.

Next Generation Mail Handler email processing

In the Next Generation Mail Handler, the email processing is separated to actions within two possible sections:

If issue found for email: in this case you can choose to select the Add Comment OR the Create issue actions to your handler.
If issue not found for email: in this case you can add the Create issue action to your handler.

Using the Add Comment action: If you want to add a comment when an issue is found based on an incoming email, use the Add Comment action.

Set the Comment Visibility as you require and select how we should add attachments from incoming emails.

Note: If you do not set up anything in the “If issue found for email” section, a new issue will always be created based on the incoming email.

This is identical to the Always Create Issues strategy in the Classic Mail Handler.

If you set up the Add Comment action in the “If issue found for email” section AND add the Create issue action in the “If issue not found for email“ section, your setup will be identical to the Create Or Comment Issues strategy in the classic mail handler (in case of non-JSD projects).

If you set up the Add Comment action in the “If issue found for email” section AND add the Create issue action in the “If issue not found for email“ section with the scope of a Service Management project, your setup will be identical to the Service Management Create or Comment strategy in the Classic Mail Handler.

Using the Create Issue action:

If you want to create an issue based on an incoming email, use the Create Issue action. This action is available in both the “If Issue found for email” and the “If Issue not found for email” sections.

Set the scope of the action to the project/issue type and request type of your choosing as discussed in the Scope section.

Link type (Optional): two issues may be linked using the link type attribute. If the incoming email references an existing issue (for example in the subject), the new issue will be linked by the type you select here.

Add attachments: Defines how the action handles attachments in the email. Options include:

Add Attachments
Do not Add Attachments
Do not add attachment if one with the same name exists
Do not add attachment if one with the same name and size exists
Filter attachments using the Attachment Filters

Split regex: This field may contain Java regular expressions that will be matched against the comment body. If either of the regexes matches the body, the body is split at the match position. The part of the body before the match position will be added as the comment, while the rest is dropped.

Attach original email as .eml file: If enabled, the original email is attached to the issue as an email file (.eml format).

Handler Actions

Classic Mail Handler actions

Handler actions are available for all strategies and they work side by side with our field rules.

Executes workflow transition on issues: if enabled, the mail handler executes a workflow transition on the issue (read on for more information).
Initializes Issue Fields: if enabled, the mail handler looks up a Field Context and applies its field rules to initialize issue fields.
Overrides Default Issue Lookup: if enabled, the mail handler looks up a Field Context and applies its issue lookup field rules to find the issue that can be associated with the incoming email.
Filter incoming emails: If enabled, the mail handler looks up a Field Context and applies its filtering rules to the email.

Next Generation Mail Handler actions

Handler actions no longer work using field rules, but they all have their own actions. It means that even if you have field rules set up, they will not work with the Next Generation Mail Handler, they will be ignored.

The Executes workflow transition on issues handler action in the Next Generation Mail Handler can be achieved by using the Execute Workflow Transition action. This action executes a workflow transition on the issue. The transition to execute is either determined by a transition property or by email content.

The Initializes Issue Fields handler action in the Next Generation Mail Handler can be achieved by using the Set Field action.

The Overrides Default Issue Lookup handler action in the Next Generation Mail Handler is no longer available on its own. The result of an issue lookup rule can be achieved in the Find Issues for Email section. In this case, the Find issues by references in email headers (this is the one that is equivalent to the Ignore Issue ID in Email Headers) should be used.

The Filter incoming emails handler action in the Next Generation Mail Handler can be set in the Filter Emails section.
Email filter actions check different characteristics of the incoming emails. If an email passes a filter, the next filter is checked. If an email does not pass a filter, then the process stops and the email is marked as filtered out and will not be processed.
Multiple filter actions can be added to a handler. To add a filter action, use the + icon.

Acknowledge Incoming Emails

Classic Mail Handler

In the classic mail handler, the Acknowledge Incoming Emails section offers three different methods for acknowledging incoming emails.

Event: Email This Issue Mail Handler can fire an event for each incoming email that the mail handler processes.
Acknowledge New Issues: If an email template is selected here, it will be used to generate auto-acknowledge emails when a new issue is created from an email.
Acknowledge New Comments: If an email template is selected here, it will be used to generate auto-acknowledge emails when a new comment is added to an issue from an email.

Next Generation Mail Handler

Note: In the Next Generation Mail Handler, the Acknowledge Incoming Emails section is no longer available as a separate function, but you can still send auto-reply emails when an issue is found or not. The Event function has been removed, it is not possible to fire extra events using the handler after processing.

The Send Auto-reply email in the Next Generation Mail Handler has the same purpose as the Acknowledge New Issues and the Acknowledge New Comments options had in the Classic Mail Handler.

Click on the If Issue found for email or the If Issue not found for email sections in the handler and select the Send Auto-reply email option.

Note: This action cannot be nested in conditions, therefore they will always be sent out.

From Address and the Reply-to Address options are available in this section, however, please note that these are only applicable for these auto-reply emails. From Address and Reply-to Address options for other outgoing emails are still available from the Context.

Senders and Recipients

Classic Mail Handler

In the Classic Mail Handler setup, the senders and recipients section is responsible for the configuration of saving the senders and the recipients from an incoming email processed by Email This Issue.

Note: Neither the Classic Mail Handler nor the Next Generation Mail Handler can save BCC recipients due to technical limitations.

Sender Email Address Field: The custom field selected here will be used to store the email address of the email's sender.

Sender Name Field: The custom field selected here will be used to store the name of the email's sender.

User Recipients: This attribute determines how the mail handler should treat users recognized as recipient email addresses:

Add to watchers: save as watchers in the issue
Save to multi-user picker field: save them in the selected user picker field
Treat as email addresses: treat them as email addresses and save the email addresses in the recipient fields (see below).

Recipient field (To): The custom field selected here is used to store email addresses of the email's TO recipients.

Recipient field (Cc): The custom field selected here is used to store email addresses of the email's CC recipients.

Next Generation Mail Handler

In the Next Generation Mail Handler setup, the senders and recipients section is fully available using the Manage Senders and Recipients action.

The Manage Senders and Recipients action is available either through the Create action OR the Update Issue action in case of issues that are found.

Note: Neither the Classic Mail Handler nor the Next Generation Mail Handler can save BCC recipients due to technical limitations.

In the Next Generation Mail Handler the senders and the recipients may be saved in a more detailed way then it was possible with the Classic Mail Handler. To save senders select the issue field where the sender is saved if they do not have permission to create or access the issue in Jira.

User picker or text fields are available for selection,, but keep in mind that only users will be saved to user picker fields, while people unknown to Jira can only be saved in multi-line text fields.

Email addresses saved here may be set as recipients in notifications or manual emails. Saving the sender's name is also possible by using the Set field action.

Advanced Settings

Classic Mail Handler

In the Classic Mail Handler, Advanced Settings are offered for a number of additional functions. They are not necessary for basic email processing but they provide useful tools.

Email Address Exclusion: Email addresses (one per line) entered here are not saved in the sender or recipient fields (useful to save the mail handler address here to avoid mail loops). Supports regular expressions, to ensure your email address exclusion will not run into problems. Include (?i) at the beginning of the email address for safety.
Split Regex: Regular expressions (one per line) entered here are used to split the email body by a delimiter (optionally the original incoming email as well).
External Email Senders: Specify how to treat emails sent from email addresses not registered as users in Jira. Options are to accept the mails for processing or to ignore (leave in the mailbox) these emails. If you want to prevent the situation that practically anyone could pollute your Jira instance by sending emails, simply set this option to Ignore.
Jira Mail Strategy: Specifies how to treat emails sent from the current or another Jira instance. Options are available to accept or ignore these emails.

Note: Please be careful to avoid email loops when sending emails between Jira instances.

Ignore Issue ID in Email Headers: By default, Email This Issue checks for the "In-Reply-To" and "References" email headers for Jira IDs if no issue keys appear in the email subject. If such an issue ID is found, it comments on the issue.

Note: By enabling this option you can override the default behavior and make Email This Issue ignore these email headers. It can be useful to prevent confusion when an email sent from Jira is replied or forwarded back to Jira. In such cases, the seemingly unrelated issues may be commented on. If this checkbox is turned on, Email This Issue will only use the email subject and its own Issue Lookup Field Rules to process emails but will ignore the invisible email headers.

Next Generation Mail Handler

In the Next Generation Mail Handler, the Advanced Settings are offered as parts of other, previously mentioned actions.

Email Address Exclusion is available in the Manage Senders and Recipients action - Exclusions tab. Here, you can exclude email addresses from being saved as senders or recipients. Email addresses (one per line) should be entered to exclude from being saved as a recipient or sender. If the sender and/or recipient email addresses match an entry here, they will not be saved in the custom fields.

For instance, use this field to exclude the email address to which the corresponding mail handler is listening.

Split Regex functions are available on the Create Issue and Add Comments sections.

Accepting emails from External Email Senders can be restricted in the Filter emails section.

The function called Jira Mail Strategy in the Classic Mail Handler, that specifies how to treat emails sent from the current or another Jira instance can be restricted in the Filter emails section.

Ignore Issue ID in Email Headers is not available as a separate action in the Next Generation Mail Handler. This can be set up in the Find Issues for Email section. This part of the handler contains Issue Lookup Actions whose responsibility is to find issues associated with the email using different approaches. The approaches to find issues associated with emails are:

Find issues by the issues key appearing in the email subject
Find issues referenced by the In-Reply-To or References headers (this is the one that is equivalent to the Ignore Issue ID in Email Headers)
Find issues by a JQL query composed of the email attributes

Troubleshooting

Please read the following in order to get a better view of the differences and in order to be able to troubleshoot basic mail handler problems and to see the differences of solving them in either handler.