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Rule Configuration Guide

An Out of Office rule records when you are away and what happens to your work items while you are gone. Open Apps > Out of Office Assistant in the Jira navigation bar, choose the My Rules tab, and select Add rule for myself. The full page form Schedule your Out of Office Rule opens.

What the form starts with

Start Date defaults to today and carries a Clear icon, End Date (Optional) reads Open ended, Start Time and End Time both read All day, and your timezone sits under each date. Choose Template reads Start from scratch, and Work Item Selection is Spaces with All spaces.

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The rule form with dates entered. Everything below them is still at its default.

Create a rule

  1. Set Start Date and, if you know when you are back, End Date. An empty End Date leaves the rule open ended until you disable it.

  2. Change Start Time or End Time from All day if you leave or return mid-day.

  3. Under Work Item Selection, keep Spaces and choose the spaces the rule acts on, or switch to JQL Work Item Filter and enter a query. Space pickers and template lists show the space name, never a raw space ID.

  4. Decide what happens to those work items: name Coverers to take over assignment, Approver Coverers to stand in on approvals, or write Message Text to post as a comment. Any combination works. Share this message with service desk customers also shows it in the customer portal.

  5. Choose a Mention Tag option: no tag, a tag while you are out of office, or a tag from four days before the absence starts.

  6. Select Create Rule.

Create Rule stays disabled until the dates are valid and the rule does something. The rule needs at least one coverer, one approver coverer, or message text, unless you mark it as status only.

What the scope does not do

Your out of office status applies to you as a person. The spaces or JQL filter on a rule limit only which work items it acts on for reassignment and comments. You still count as out of office everywhere, including in spaces the rule does not cover.

Repeat the same absence

Tick Make the rule recurring when the same pattern applies more than once, such as a fixed day off each week. A block appears under the checkbox: Repeat every a number of week(s), a Mon to Sun toggle row that starts with Mon to Fri on, and a second Start Time and End Time pair that belongs to the recurrence. The form then shows two identically labelled pairs, the recurrence one below the checkbox.

Show your status without handing work over

Tick Show Out of Office status in work item glance only (skip coverer, approver, and message) when colleagues should see you are away but nothing should be reassigned or commented on. The form collapses: Work Item Selection, Coverers, Approver Coverers and Message Text are removed, and Create Rule becomes available on the dates alone. A status-only rule cannot be scoped, so it always covers every work item.

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Glance-only ticked: the handling fields are gone and Create Rule is available.

Change or delete a rule

Your existing rules are listed on the My Rules tab. Open the Actions menu on the rule's row and choose Edit, which reopens this same form with that rule's values, or Delete to remove the rule. Editing a rule that was created from a template clears its template reference, so later changes to that template never reach it.

Conflicts and limits

If the period overlaps a rule you already have for the same scope, a red Schedule conflict block appears in the form and reads This rule overlaps with an existing rule covering the same scope, followed by the overlapping dates. Adjust the dates or narrow the scope to clear it, or open Change priority on My Rules if the overlap is between rules from different sources.

Per instance, at most 10 rules may use a JQL work item filter, and template names must be unique.

The Mention Tag appears next to @-mentions of an absent user after the work item view is reloaded, not in the comment you just posted.

An interactive walkthrough of the same flow: