Not being able to do this by email is a pain in the butt.

The basic API exists - please send any feedback on https://ecosystem.atlassian.net/browse/JSDECO-9

atlassian680641397, that's correct. The raiseOnBehalf field expects a user name, so if you set it to an email address that corresponds to an existing user, the user can't be found nor created, and the whole request fails. What might have gotten you confused is that the /customer API sets the username to their email address ?
There is currently no way to search for an existing user by email, which is a bit unfortunate in your use-case.

I have a related problem.

I have a public service desk. On this service desk, the existing JIRA users show up as customers. I can raise a request on behalf of any of these customers through the normal UI.

I also have a web application (a form) which submits requests to JIRA via the API.

It works perfectly except when an existing JIRA User tries to submit a request.

For example, let's say I have a licensed JIRA User (member of jira-users group, with required permissions on service desk) - username peter and email peter@peter.com.

If Peter fills in the form, and provides his email address, my code will try to create a request and will provide the email address in raiseOnBehalfOf field.

The response I get is "Your request could not be created. Please check the fields have been correctly filled in. Please provide a valid value for field 'Raise this request on behalf of'"

I can still use the UI to raise a request on behalf of the user. In both cases, using the UI and API, I have the same credentials so I don't think its a permissions issue.

If we use an entirely different email address, one that is not associated with any JIRA user accounts, say peter1@peter1.com, then the above works and the request and customer are created as expected.

It seems to me that the failure happens when it tries to create a customer and the email address is already in use.

Can anyone help?

Good news, everyone. We have a preliminary API that lets you

• Create customer accounts: https://docs.atlassian.com/jira-servicedesk/REST/cloud/#servicedeskapi/customer-createCustomer
• Enable these accounts for specific service desks: https://docs.atlassian.com/jira-servicedesk/REST/cloud/#servicedeskapi/servicedesk/{serviceDeskId}/customer-addCustomers (this will be deployed in about a week from now)

Head on over to https://ecosystem.atlassian.net/browse/JSDECO-9 for any feedback you might have. We'll be tracking the rest of the work for this API on that ticket, so give it a watch and/or a vote

andreyev.dias, kyle.williams863045155, the reason this isn't documented is because it's a private API (/servicedeskapi is public, documented, and, more importantly, has guaranteed stability, whereas /servicedesk is private and might change or break at any point). The good news is we're working towards have a servicedesk api to manage customers, invites, etc.

Thank you for this, it is MUCH more elegant than the solution I described. This endpoint is not documented in the API...

Hmmm... This should work but seens more simple if you do what was pointed in https://answers.atlassian.com/questions/37853361/jira-service-desk-invite-customer-via-rest-api:

curl -fs -u "${JIRAUSER}:${JIRAPASS}" -X POST --data "{\"emails\":[\"${EMAIL}\"]}" -H "Content-Type: application/json" "${JIRAURL}/rest/servicedesk/${PORTALID}/pages/people/customers/${PROJKEY}/invite"

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Andreyev

This was an issue for us as well. After a bit of orchestration I was able to make this happen. It depends on if you're using a private or public Service Desk.

For Public Service Desks (enable public registration):
Use the Service Desk API to create an issue on a public service desk using their email address for the raiseOnBehalfOf parameter (Requires additional permissions)*
This will create a ticket and if the email does not already have an account, send an email invitation.
https://docs.atlassian.com/jira-servicedesk/REST/cloud/#servicedeskapi/request-createCustomerRequest

For Private Service Desks

The API user will need to be able to Administer Projects, and Modify Reporter

1. Create a new simple public service desk, I called it "ONBOARDING"
2. Use the Service Desk API to create an issue on a public service desk using their email address for the raiseOnBehalfOf parameter
3. After this you will need to poke around to find the Service Desk Customers role for the project you want them to join:
   GET ... /rest/api/2/project/<service_desk_project_id>/role
4. POST ... /rest/api/2/project/<service_desk_project_id>/role/<service_desk_role_id> { "user": ["user@example"] }

This will allow you to invite a user and add them to a private service desk.