Activating Out of Office rules with Plans in Tempo Planner
The integration between Tempo and Out of Office Assistant for Jira Cloud works for both Tempo Timesheets and Tempo Planner. This article shows the starting point for the latter.
If you are using Tempo Timesheets instead, see Activating Out-of-Office Rules with Plans in Timesheets.
Tempo Planner is similar to Timesheets in that it lets you schedule absences, but it provides more of a resource-planning interface. By connecting Capacity Planner with Out-of-Office Assistant, any planned time on internal issues (PTO, sick leave, etc.) will trigger automatic out-of-office rules—including partial-day schedules.
Introduction
What This Does
When you plan time off in Tempo Planner, Out-of-Office Assistant automatically:
Creates a rule reflecting your absence window (full day or partial hours).
Assigns coverers, approver coverers, and/or shares out-of-office messages, as defined by users in their connected templates.
Partial-Day Coverage
You can create daily or hourly blocks (e.g., 2 hours off each afternoon) in Tempo Planner. Out-of-Office will mark you away for just that scheduled slot:
During the scheduled segment, your status is “Out of Office.”
Before/After the plan, you’re considered available.
Any issues assigned to you in that window get the normal out-of-office actions (like reassigning to coverers).
If you setup a partial day plan for a time period (for example, Mo-Thu from 9:12), Out of Office will create the hourly blocks for each day.
Full-Day Coverage
To be marked as Out of Office for the entire duration of the day, use plans that are 8 hours or longer (e.g., 9:00–17:00). This will allow the app to also work for assignments made outside of business hours.
Walkthrough
Create a Plan
To create a plan, simply click on the plus icon for any day tile on Tempo Planner.
If other users have set up their out of office connection with Tempo, you can add plans on their behalf.
2. Select the internal issue
To activate an Out of Office rule, make sure to add the plan to an internal issue that has been connected to Out of Office. In this case, it's "Vacation"
3. Check the Period option
If your plan will have a duration of multiple dates, make sure to check the Period option below the Description of the plan.
If your plan will be for just one day, leave this option unchecked.
4. Select your End Date
Together with the initial date, this will define the Start and End Date of the connected Out of Office rules.
In this case, we'll pick July 31st, 2023
5. Define the Duration of the Plan
Remember that Tempo Planner doesn't have a predefined duration of your plans.
It's very important to pick the right time, as this will have a consequence on the duration of the Out of Office rules and Out of Office events, including reassignments.
When plans are 8 hours or longer, Out of Office rules will be active for 24 hours (from 00:00 until 23:59)
When plans are shorter than 8 hours, Out of Office rules will be active for the exact time defined in the plan.
6. Define exact times
If your plan is for less than 8 hours, make sure to define the exact From and To times.
7. Find the Out of Office rules for that plan
Back to Out of Office Assistant, you will see that the plans have generated one rule for each of the templates mapped to the internal issue to which the plan was added.
8. Deleting and Modifying Plans
Changes to Tempo Plans will propagate to connected rules
Deleting an existing plan will remove the connected rules
Changing the dates of the plan will modify the dates of connected rules accordingly
Changing the duration of the plan will modify the duration of connected rules accordingly
Changing the internal issue of the plan will replace the connected rules. However, you will lose track of how many issues were reassigned by replaced rules.
9. Logic for Stacking Plans
Tempo allows to make multiple plans in a single day, with no limitation on the total number of hours.
Out of Office Assistant will read these plans and create out of office rules with the following logic:
When a plan already exists for any day with a duration of 8 hours, it will generate rules for the entire day. Other plans will be ignored.
If a plan has a duration of less than 8 hours, other plans for that day may generate OoO rules for the duration of the day that still isn't planned.
