Service Desk: Add issue participants via email address

Problem to solve

Currently, the service desk will monitor incoming emails and create issues. When comments are made on those issues, email participants will receive updates via email.

However, it is currently not possible to create an issue and add email participants, effectively preventing the Service Desk from initiating a conversation with a customer/team member.

Intended users

• Support Engineer

As a support engineer, I would like to create issues on behalf of my end-users and have them be included via email to responses.

• End User

As an end user, I need the ability to receive updates to my support queries when an issue has been created for my issue.

Further details

The current Service Desk implementation allows a one-way path for end-users to create issues. However, not all end-user issues are a result of an incoming email. During a customer call / support call, issues may be brought up that should be captured.

Operating under this paradigm, it is not possible to add email addresses to these created issues so that the end-user can receive issue updates and collaborate on resolution.

Proposal

When creating an issue on behalf of an end-user, a support engineer should be able to add additional participants via email address. This would allow the end-user to receive updates as the issue is worked, and to collaborate on issue resolution.

Permissions and Security

In a support role, often times customer data is involved and the issue is marked as Confidential. We need to carefully evaluate the ability to add participants so that we respect the privacy of customer data.

Documentation

• Update documentation to describe the workflow of adding email participants to issues.

Testing

What does success look like, and how can we measure that?

• Participant can be added to an issue via email, and will receive email updates in the same manner as is currently implemented when a Service Desk issue is created via email.
• Improves the experience for the GitLab IT Helpdesk
• Metrics available to show feature usage.

What is the type of buyer?

This feature extends existing Service Desk functionality which is a GitLab Premium feature.

Links / references

• This was identified by our internal IT Helpdesk team as a blocker for full adoption - see IT Helpdesk epic.

Solution

Note: The plan for this feature is to be available on all issues, but only visible to project members.

Add a quick action where users (who are project members) can specify one or multiple email participants to be added to an issue. [Design]

This would create a role for the email participant similar to the case where someone emails a service desk address and an issue is created (where they receive notifications on the issue and can reply with comments).

When an email participant is added, we will:

1. Show an entry in the activity area informing project members of this. [Design]
2. Add an alert note under the comment box that explains email participants will be notified of this comment. [Design] (Note: In the future, when private comments are finished, users will be able to check that box so that a notification for that particular requirement is not sent to email participants. If that box is checked, we will need to at that point remove the alert note regarding email participants, as well as any future comments in that thread)

This should also include a quick action to remove email participants. [Design]

When an email participant is removed, we will:

1. Show an entry in the activity area informing project members of this.
2. Remove this email from the alert note, and if it is the only email participant, remove the alert note entirely.

I have also included designs for truncating the alert note, as well as the activity information in the case there are multiple participants added. [Design]

I am assuming we will want to break some of this out for implementation, and perhaps not all of it will be necessary for MVC, which may include:

• Adding multiple email participants
• Showing an entry in the activity area for addition/removal
• Truncating email participants in alert note
• Truncating email participants in activity area

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