Improve email workflow for Jira projects

If you work on lots of projects in Jira, you know that the flood of emails is inevitable. Every bug report, status change, comment, reassignment, and version release gets sent to your inbox, even if it is something you did yourself!

Here are a few ways to stem the tide:

Turn off emails from your changes.

This is a given. You don't need email confirmation that you marked the ticket as resolved. You know you did that. Log into Jira and click the pencil on your profile next to "Preferences"

You can already see there is an option called "Own Changes" and you can change it to "Do not notify me".

Email filters 

This example is for Gmail users, but the same concept can be applied to Outlook if you know how to build mail rules.

There are three rules I use:

a) subject:([JIRA]) [Apply label]
b) from:(jira@b*******s.com "Ian Moffitt") [Skip inbox, mark as read, never mark as important]
c) from:(jira@b*******s.com -"Ian Moffitt") subject:(-"Commented") [Skip inbox, mark as important]

Rule b prevents any Jira emails from entering my Inbox. I follow the practice of "Inbox Zero" which sets the concept that your inbox is only for emails that are waiting for action or acknowledgement from you, and haven't been sorted.

Rule c, however, supercedes rule b if the Jira email is a comment on an existing bug, so that I can actively engage in conversation around a defect.



These two practices, when combined, basically make Jira emails vanish from your inbox unless someone comments on a bug. It's a nice way to improve workflow without being drowned by a tide of emails.