Do users need special permissions to create, modify or delete their own Out of Office rules in JIRA?

No, every Jira user and Jira Service Management agent can manage their own Out of Office rules. Project administrators can manage rules for their team members, and Jira administrators can manage rules for any user.

What levels of admin access are required to initiate Out of Office Assistant integration with calendars?

Any user can integrate their own Google Calendar or Outlook calendar via Zapier. Integrating with Tempo requires administrator action to pass the Tempo access token into Out of Office Assistant.

Further information:

Can project administrators override Out of Office settings put in place by users?

Yes, project administrators can edit existing rules created by users, but their scope is limited to the projects they administrate.

Further information: Admin Walkthrough

How can I restrict certain users from being selected as coverers in Out of Office rules?

Currently, it's not possible to restrict certain users from being selected as coverers.

Further information: User Walkthrough

Feature request: If this feature is desired, please raise a ticket here with the summary “restrict coverers”.

Are there permissions related to who can see Out of Office information on JIRA issues?

Currently, Out of Office data is accessible in Jira issues by all regular users in Jira Software and Jira Work Management, as well as Jira Service Management agents.

As Atlassian is rolling out new Data Security Policies, we will soon allow to define which projects should be blacklisted or whitelisted for the usage of Out of Office. However, as of Q3 2024, we're still waiting for some necessary APIs to implement this improvement without breaking changes.

Feature request: If your company needs to restrict access to Out of Office data, please raise a ticket here with the summary “restrict access to OoO data” and explain your use case.

Is there an audit log accessible for administrators to track changes to Out of Office rules?

No, there is currently no log for administrators.

Feature request: If a logging system is required, please raise a ticket here with the summary “rule logging for admins”.

How do JIRA global permissions affect the configuration and management of Out of Office rules?

Out of Office applies Jira global permissions to the ability to create, modify, or delete Out of Office rules. In addition to that, any user or group can be appointed as Out of Office Administrator.

Further information: Admin Walkthrough

Can group permissions be set to manage group-specific Out of Office settings?

Out of Office does not currently support group settings.

Feature request: If group-based capabilities are needed, please raise a ticket here.

Can any user assign other users as their coverers, or are there restrictions?

There are no restrictions for setting other users as coverers, but project permissions may affect the reassignment effectiveness in some cases. In other words: an appointed coverer may not be able to become the new assigne of an issue, if he/she doesn't have the rights to be assigned issues in the relevant projects.

Further information: User Walkthrough

Is there a permission setting that allows only Out of Office rule viewing, without the ability to edit?

Regular users can see all Out of Office rules but can only create and edit their own rules.

Further information: User Walkthrough

Can JIRA Service Desk agents manage Out of Office settings for assigned tickets?

Certain Out of Office settings specific to Jira Service Management can be managed by agents, while others are global settings that only Jira admins can manage:

  • Agents can decide for each rule, whether Out of Office messages should be shared with customers
  • Agents can select their own approval coverers
  • However, only admins can decide whether the Out of Office status of an agent will be visible on the Service Management portal. This setting can be applied per JSM project.

Further information: User Walkthrough, Displaying availability in the JSM portal

Is it possible to limit who can deactivate another user’s Out of Office rules?

To limit who can deactivate another user’s Out of Office rules, make a careful choice of who can be an Out of Office administrator in addition to project admins and Jira admins (coming in Q1 2024).

Further information: Getting started

How can I prevent users from changing their Out of Office status too frequently?

There is no feature in the app to prevent frequent status changes. Establishing accepted practices and policies is recommended for consistent app usage.