Service Desk: Separate Issue Comments from Email Replies
Description
When a new issue is raised via Service Desk, all comments by non-client-facing devs gets forwarded to the client who sent the email. Often the technical side of handling the issues should be independent of the politely worded responses that are sent to clients. Yet I would still like the replies to clients to be part of the comment thread so that devs are aware of client interactions around the issue.
Proposal
I think there are a couple of possible solutions ...
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The simplest solution to this would be to add an additional option to the "Comment" button to both submit the comment and send the comment to the person who opened the ticket. Whether the default is to send or not send an email would be a matter of configuration I hope.
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Another option would be to not send emails at all at the point the comment is submitted, but to add a button to the "more actions" link on the comment allowing it to be sent as a secondary action.
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One other possibility would be to allow replies to the client be made from a standard email client, and b/cc the gitlab issue email address.
Peripheral Requirements
Regardless of which solution you go with, there are some additional requirements that would come with this feature.
- You would need some kind of visual identification on comments that had been sent to the client. This lets developers know what the client has and hasn't been told, which is important.
- You would need permissions for who can and can't send comments to clients.
- You would need a setting for whether the default functionality of commenting includes sending a comment or not.