Unable to add/invite a Customer in Jira Service Management Cloud

Platform Notice: Cloud Only - This article only applies to Atlassian products on the cloud platform.

Summary

When adding a JSM customer from the Customer section of a service project, the following error message appears:

"The following customers could not be added: "jira@mydomain.com" Please check the email addresses and try again."

Solution

Identifying the source of the problem

Admin required

To properly diagnose this, the user will need to be a site admin. Without this level of permission on the site, the user management pages are not accessible to users outside the site-admin role.

Verify If:

  1. The user you are trying to add as customer has Atlassian Account already from the User management page:

  2. The user is already added as Portal-only customer in Jira Service Management page:

  3. Internal or External options are checked under Customer access settings: https://<site-name>.atlassian.net/jira/settings/products/servicedesk/customer-access) or in the Jira site > Settings > Products > Customer access (under Jira Service Management).

  4. The account is managed by another organization. This can be identified as Suggest changes are greyed out from the User view.

Reasons for Customer Invitation Failures

Problem 1

The account already exists but the access has been revoked on the User Management page.

Problem 2

The Portal-only (customer) account already exists, but it is inactive.

Problem 3

Having Internal and External account type access unchecked, won't allow users to invite customers.

In case you have checked just the Internal account type access, under your approved domains setting, it allows only for certain domains. It won't be possible to send invites to customers with non-approved domains.

Problem 4

The user account is a managed Atlassian Account by another domain and it has been disabled.

Change settings to fix the issue

Problem 1

You need to reactivate their account. If you don't plan to grant the user the product access and not to be billed for the account, you need to turn on the toggle "Has access on-site" and toggle off the rest of the product's access.

Below are the steps:

  1. Navigate to User Management page:

  2. Grant the Jira Service Management access (Customer role).

  3. Navigate back to your Project > Customers > Add Customers.

Problem 2

You need to reactivate their (Portal-Only customer) account under:

Below are the steps:

  1. Navigate to the Portal-only Customer Management page (refer to the above steps).

  2. Search for the user > Click the additional Actions button > Select the "Grant Access" option.

Problem 3

You need to check at least one of the current account type accesses (Internal/External or both) depending on your business needs. In case your current configuration allows only Internal customer access (Without checking External access) you must allow the customer email domain:

Below are the steps:

  1. Access the admin.atlassian.com URL page.

  2. Click on Products.

  3. On the left bar click on User access settings.

  4. Add the necessary domains under the approved domains tab.

Relevant links:

Problem 4

Option 1

Ask the affected user to collaborate with the organization admins who own the domain to enable their user. Since this is a managed account, only the admins of the domain can enable the account. Until this account is enabled, it can't access Atlassian products in any organization.

Option 2

Considering this article about duplicate accounts, you could attempt to create a local Portal-Only customer account in your Jira Service Management product.

To try this workaround, please follow these steps:

  1. Find the user from the user management view:

  2. Remove the user from your organization by clicking on the Actions button > Remove User.

  3. After the user has been removed from the and can't be found in your organization user management menu, navigate back to your Project > Customers > Add customers

  4. Click on Add customers, provide the user's email, and click +Add.

    • This will create a local Portal-only customer account on your site.

Updated on April 10, 2025
Platform
Cloud only
Product
Jira Service Management Cloud
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