Jira users aren't receiving notifications in Jira Cloud projects

Summary

Jira users are not receiving notifications they expect to receive after changes to work items in a company-managed Jira Business, Software, or Service Management space.

Solution

Note: Missing notifications in a company-managed space usually trace back to one of these causes. Work through the checks in order - each is independent, so any one of them can be the cause:

• The person turned off notifications in their own profile, or an external email filter is blocking delivery

• The person can't view the work item because of a space permission or work item security level

• The person isn't a recipient in the space notification scheme

• A workflow transition fires the wrong event

• On service spaces, the person is being treated as a customer

Check if notifications are disabled in the user profile

Occasionally, the affected user might have unsubscribed from notifications themselves. Additionally, ensure there are no external factors, such as email filtering rules or spam/junk mail settings in external email clients like Outlook, that could block Jira notifications from being delivered to the inbox.

Affected users can verify this setting for their own profiles:

• From any page in Jira, select your profile picture, then select Personal settings

• Select Spaces and issues in the navigation sidebar

• If it's turned off, use the Send me emails for issue activity toggle to turn notifications on

• To also get notifications about your own changes, select the You make changes to issues checkbox

Confirm that affected users can view work items

In order to receive notifications from Jira work items, users must be able to view these items in Jira.

Two configurations control whether users can view work items. They are the Browse space permission from the space's permission scheme, and whether work item security is set on the individual work items.

Check for Browse Space permission

1. Visit the affected space

2. Navigate to Space settings > Permissions

3. Find the Browse Space permission in the list

4. Check whether the affected user belongs to one of the groups or space roles listed. If not, refer to Manage space permissions to grant permission for the user

Check for work item security

1. Visit a work item where notifications were not sent as expected

2. Check the security lock icon on the work item

If the lock is closed and a security level has been set, the user may not be part of the proper security level to view the issue. Refer to Configure work item security schemes to determine the best way to resolve the problem.

Add user to Space Notification Scheme

If the affected user is not set as a recipient of the notification for the given event, you will need to edit the Notification Scheme used by the space. Notification events can be set to deliver to:

• Individual users

• Groups

• Space Roles

• Jira roles (current assignee, reporter, watchers, etc.)

To check the Notification scheme in use:

1. Navigate to the affected Space

2. Select Space Settings > Notifications > Settings

Confirm workflow transitions fire the correct events

A common scenario where this applies:

• An issue was closed using the "Close issue" transition

• A user is a watcher, reporter, or assignee of that issue

• According to the Notification scheme configuration in the space, this user should receive notifications on the event Issue Closed

• This user does not receive a notification when the issue is closed

Using the scenario above, if the Close Issue transition fires a Generic Event (instead of the Issue Closed event) then the user won't receive a notification. See the below screenshot as an example of this configuration:

To fix this issue, you can either:

• Change the event fired by the transition to Issue Closed

  • Please refer to Advanced workflow configuration for instructions

• Edit the notification scheme associated with the space, so that the impacted user can receive notifications on the event Generic Event

  • Please refer to Configure notification schemes for instructions

Service Spaces only: Affected users may be considered "customers" by JSM

When users aren't receiving notifications specifically from Service Space work items, the problem may be caused by accidentally belonging to a JSM customer organization. When this happens, the user will be treated as a customer within the work item and Jira notifications are not triggered for them.

To remove the user from the customer organization:

1. Go to the space

2. Navigate to Organizations

3. Remove the user from the Organization