Sending manual emails

One of the key features of Jira Email This Issue is sending manual emails right from the Jira issue's screen.

To send a manual email, do either of the following:

  • Click the Email button on the right side of the issue screen.

  • Under More, choose the Email This Issue item from the menu.

  • Press Q.

Note: Email templates, and SMTP server settings don't need to be set each time. However, if the default settings are not enough, you can define manual email configuration sets that override the defaults and allow you to fully customize how you want to send emails manually.

For more information about setting up an SMTP server, see Outgoing mail connections.

For customizing default settings, see Manual email default settings, Email issue filters, Email Templates.

To learn more about the default procedure of sending them from the issue, read forward.

Email screen actions

The email screen is where you can compose emails manually the following way:

  • Set recipients (To, Cc, Bcc). Recipients can be users, roles, groups, custom fields, external email addresses and virtual users (e.g. project lead, watchers, assignee, reporter).

  • Enter an email subject and email body.

  • Add attachments to the email.

  • Choose from predefined messages to add complex content to the email body.

On the right side of the email screen you can see the issue details on the right hand side for easy reference, therefore there is no need to open the issue in a separate tab of the browser.

Email options

While composing your email, you can set various email options. Click the Email options button on top to reveal or hide them on the right side panel of the screen.

The email body

You can compose an individual message in the editor or you can fill the email body with predefined content. Choose the predefined response from the drop-down list, and click Add Response for it to appear in the body.

To initialize the email body, you need to develop an email template first under Templates and when adding a new or editing and already existing Context, select it the Mail Body Initializer Template field. Read more about it here.

See Email templates, Contexts and Email editors and Rich Text emails for more information.

Important: Never use the same templates to prefill body and send emails. Mail Body Initializer templates are purely used to initialize the Body field in the email screen. When the email is sent, the formatted, preinitialized and possibly modified Body will be submitted as if it was entered manually.

Therefore the template used for generating the final email will include this formatted, rich body value via the $!mailBody variable. This means, if you used the same template, the preformatted content may be added twice to the email.

If you use a prefill template, the email template you send with may be as simply as the $!mailBody variable.

Large images in the email body

When adding large inline images to the email body please wait until the uploading progress bar reaches 100% and then fully disappears before clicking on the Send button. In case of clicking Send earlier 500 - internal server error occurs.

When using Reply/ Reply all / Forward function to send emails containing large inline image(s) loading the Manual Email screen might take up to a few minutes depending on the inline image's size.

The Email Template field

The email template used for formatting email is determined by the project and/or the type of the issue (via Contexts) and can be easily configured using the built-in template editor.

Contexts may be configured with multiple template categories. Templates from the selected categories are listed in the email screen. Emails are generated from the selected template.

See Email templates, Contexts and Email editors and Rich Text emails for more information.

The Subject field

Clicking the refresh button next to the Subject field regenerates the subject according to the template. Once clicked, the page will reload to display the content generated by using the selected template.

See Email templates, Contexts and Email editors and Rich Text emails for more information.

Attachments

You can select the issue attachments you want to attach to the email either in the text editor, or in the Attachments field.

You can also add additional files to your email for your recipients to receive all necessary information in the Attach more files field.

Quote comments in mail body

The right hand side of the email screen shows the issue details including the comments visible to the current user. Comments may be quoted in the mail body with a single click.

Email preview

Once you have composed your email recipients, subject, body and options, you can preview what the email will look like for the recipients.

To preview, click the Preview button at the bottom.

Note: Email recipients are resolved to email addresses.

The Send & Remember settings button

Email options are preset from the global defaults, but can be overridden using the Send & Remember settings button. These user preferences are reused next time you send emails.

Note: These preferences used to be stored in Browser cookies. Since Version 8.1.0, user preferences are stored in the database so they are not lost if users change browsers or clear browser caches.

If you choose, Send & Remember settings, the email recipient configuration is also stored and reused next time.

Executing workflow transitions

Jira Email This Issue for Server supports the execution of workflow transitions right after sending emails manually. To activate this feature, the Jira administrator must prepare the workflow.

Transitions marked by a transition property jeti.on.send.email.transition with the value true are executed.

  • If no transitions are marked in the current status, no transitions are executed automatically.

  • If only one transition is marked in the current status, this transition is executed automatically.

  • If multiple transitions are marked in the current status, when sending the email a popup screen is shown to select the transition to be executed. Skip transitions by selecting Send Email Only.

Note: Keep the following in mind:

  • The transition screen is not shown unless the transition is configured to show a pop-up window.

  • Conditions are bypassed, but validators are applied.

  • The selected transition is executed after the email is sent. The failure to send the email skips the transition. Although, the failure to execute a transition does not prevent the emails from being sent.

Note: It is a good practice to add transitions to the workflow statuses that are hidden from the user interface and are executed only when emails are sent.

For more information, see Workflow post functions.

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