Emailing the attention digest

What it is

The attention digest is the register's Needs attention list, sent by email — weekly or daily — to the people who should act on it. A team gets the whole project's list; each owner can also get just their own items. It is for the people who will not open the register until something tells them to.

The email is sent by Jira's own email, from its own mail queue, using an issue in the project as the thing it is sent from. ImproveDesk decides who gets what and what it says; Jira does the sending.

Two switches, and both must be on

1. A Jira administrator allows digests for the site Once, for every project. Until this is on, no project sends anything, whatever its own settings say.
2. A project administrator turns the digest on for the project In the project's ImproveDesk settings: how often, from which issue and to whom.

Both are off out of the box, so nobody starts receiving email because the app was installed or upgraded.

The site settings

Open Apps → Manage your apps, find ImproveDesk and choose Configure. The page is for Jira administrators only; ImproveDesk asks Jira on every read and every save whether you are one, and anyone else is told You need Jira administrator permission to change ImproveDesk's site settings.

Manage apps · ImproveDesk · Configure

Select Save site settings; the page confirms Site settings saved. Turning digests off takes effect from the next daily check — a check already running finishes on the setting it read, and nothing already queued in Jira's mail is recalled. Switching off and on again within the same week or day does not email anybody twice.

The project settings

In the project's Settings tab, below publishing, is Email the attention digest. It needs the Jira administer projects permission, like the rest of the page, and it is saved with the rest of the page by Save settings.

Email the attention digest

If the save is refused over the issue, the message says why:

• Choose an issue in OPS for the digest to be sent from — the digest is on and the field is empty.
• Jira could not find that issue, or you cannot see it. Check the key.
• That issue is in another project. Choose an issue in OPS.

Previewing it

Preview the digest shows the team email as it would be if it were sent now, from the saved settings, under the site's content setting. Nothing is sent. While anything on the settings page is unsaved, the button is disabled and says Save your changes to preview them. — so a preview never describes settings that are not the ones in force.

Preview the digest

What the email says

A team digest, from top to bottom:

1. The subject — ImproveDesk: 10 improvements need attention in OPS. An owner's own email reads ImproveDesk: 3 of your improvements need attention in OPS.
2. The project and the date.
3. The counts — how many need attention, and how many are overdue, stale, due for review or have no owner. One improvement can be counted under more than one of these, and the email says so.
4. Up to ten items, longest waiting first: each as CSI-5 — overdue — 139 days old, with the title after the reference when the site allows titles. Beyond ten, the list ends and 4 more.
5. A Yours section, when the recipient also owns items and owners' digests are on.
6. A note that titles are left out, when the site allows counts and references only.
7. Where to open the register — a link to the project on your Jira site, and the reminder that ImproveDesk is in its sidebar. The preview leaves the link out and names the place instead.
8. Why you receive it — named as a recipient by a project administrator, or an owner whose project has owners' digests switched on — and that a project administrator can change it in ImproveDesk's settings.

The units follow the dashboard: days old for overdue and no-owner items, counted from when the improvement was raised; days since update for stale and due-for-review items. ImproveDesk's part of the email carries no benefit figures and no names.

What Jira adds beneath it

Jira adds its own card beneath every digest, as it does for any notification about an issue: the project name, the key and the summary of the issue the digest is sent from, and an Add Comment link. So that summary reaches every recipient's inbox, and a recipient who uses Add Comment comments on that issue — not on the digest. Choose an issue whose summary you are happy for every recipient to read; one made for the purpose is simplest.

When nothing needs attention

• A weekly team digest is sent anyway, headed nothing needs attention in OPS this week — so that its absence would tell you the weekly check has stopped.
• A daily team digest is not sent.
• An owner's own email is never sent empty.

When it goes, and what you can see afterwards

Digests go out after ImproveDesk's daily check — every day for a daily digest, on the chosen weekday for a weekly one. Nobody receives more than one email per project in a day (daily) or a week (weekly), even if the check runs again or has to pick up where it left off. Beneath the controls, the section shows two lines:

• Next digest — for example Next digest: Monday 21 September, after the daily check.
• Last delivery — what happened the last time, in words.

The other things the last-delivery line can say:

Turning it off

Set Send the attention digest by email to Off and save, and nothing more is sent from this project. To stop every project at once, a Jira administrator unticks Allow email digests on this site. Either way, an email Jira has already accepted is not recalled.