About the Out of Office Assistant for Jira app for Slack

The Out of Office Assistant app for Jira cloud that is available on the Atlassian Marketplace has an existing integration with Slack. This integration can be installed from the Slack app directory or added to Slack using the instructions in this page.

The app for Slack integrates with Jira so that you can handle your vacations from Slack, alert your team that you are away and delegate your Jira issues to one or more colleagues.

Finally you can disconnect when you're on vacation or taking care of your sick daughter knowing that teamwork will keep flowing!

Remember

Out of Office rules for Jira have three elements:

• An Out of Office message that is shared with other Jira users when issues are assigned to the user who is away
• An Out of Office schedule, consisting in a mandatory start date and an optional end date
• A coverer, that is, an optional user to whom incoming Jira issues will be reassigned during the absence. 

The integration allows you to create and modify your Out of Office rules for Jira without moving away from Slack:

• You will be able to define starting and end dates for your time off, appoint one or more coverers, and add an Out of Office message.
• You can also activate and deactivate the out of office rules with the Slack status emojis for palm tree (vacations) and face with thermometer (sick leave)

Known limitations

This first version of the integration for Slack has some limitations: it only accepts one rule at a time, and it will apply the same rule to every project. However, it's possible to appoint multiple coverers, which will be reassigned incoming issues in a Round Robyn.

1. Installation

a) Preconditions

• A paid version or an active evaluation of the Out of Office Assistant for Jira app. Please follow the instructions in the following step to install the app from the Atlassian Marketplace if it hasn't been installed yet.
• To use this functionality the Admin has to enable all users to create their own Rest API tokens.

b) Installing Out of Office Assistant in your Jira instance

Reminder

The steps below must be conducted by a user with Jira admin privileges.

• Navigate to your Jira instance and login
• On the settings cog menu, navigate to "Apps"

• Search for the app in the "Find new apps" section, click on it and follow the instructions to start the trial

• Once installed, access to the Out of Office Assistant API must be enabled following the instructions here.

c) Connecting to Slack

• In your Jira instance, go to the Out of Office app from the top menu

Next, you will find the rules overview. 

Finding the Slack button when there are no Out of Office rules

If you don't have any Out of Office rules, you will see the Integrations section on that screen:

Finding the Slack button when there are Out of Office rules

If you have any rules, you will then see three tabs: Active Rules, Expired Rules, and Integrations.

• Click on Integrations
• Click the "Add to Slack" button

Giving Consent 

In both cases, you will then land on a consent screen. 

• Before giving consent, please double check that you are connecting the right Slack workspace with your Jira instance.
• If that is not the case, you can select the relevant Slack workspace from the dropdown menu at the top right

• Finally, click "Allow"

• The, click "Continue" and go to your Slack workspace.

In Jira, the Out of Office Assistant home screen will show a connection banner for as long as the connection to Slack remains active

c) Disconnecting the app from Jira

The Out of Office Assistant app for Slack can be disconnected from either system.

• To disconnect from Jira, simply click on the "Discard API Token" button.

• Once you click on discard, the app will ask you to confirm the action, since it will disconnect any connections for that token. 

• After disconnecting, the app will be removed from Slack. The app will show a disconnection screen and disappear from your workspace

d) Disconnecting the app from Slack

To disconnect the app from Slack:

• Go to the About tab and click on the Configuration button

• Once in the configuration, click on Revoke under Your Authorization

• Finally, click on Revoke again to confirm the action

• Upon the next refresh, the Out of Office Assistant's Home screen will a show a warning banner confirming that Slack has been disconnected.

2. Using the integration for Slack

The integration for Slack of Out of office Assistant for Jira allows to create a new Out of Office rule or to manage an existing rule.

The Out of Office rule will be created for the current user in Jira projects where he/she is a team member. 

a) Adding a rule

In the Home of the Out of Office Assistant app for Slack you can simply add an out of office rule by clicking "Add rule".

Here you can:

• type an out of office message that will be posted as a comment in Jira issues
• appoint one or more coverers, that are assigned if you get issues assigned to you in Jira while you are away.
• define when you want to start and end your rule (see next point)

b) Defining the start and end of your rule

There are two options to define when your rule starts and end:

• using the Slack status
• picking exact dates.

Using the Slack status

This option is selected by default. You can choose to activate the rule when your Slack status goes to ill or on vacation. The rule will be deactivated again as soon as the status is cleared. 

Note: Clearing the Slack status will not delete the rule. That means that, without any additional changes, the same rule will be activated again when the status changes back to one of the said icons.  

Picking Start and End dates

Alternatively, you can choose a start and an end date.

To activate this option, click on the corresponding radio button in the pop-up form.

Reminder

Out of office rules created in Slack are always valid for all projects in Jira at the same time. If you need more granularity then you can always switch to the Out of Office rule list in Jira.

https://<YOUR SITENAME>.atlassian.net/plugins/servlet/ac/outofoffice-connect/out-of-office-addon 

c) Managing existing rules in Slack

Once you have added a rule you will see it like this in the app Home.

Here you can check the dates, the coverer, and the Out of Office message.

• To make any changes to those details, simply click on the Modify Rule button.
• The rule can also be entirely deleted, or you can change it from active to inactive or viceversa.

When you move to Jira you will see the out of office rule in the rule list, as all other rules. The rule can also be modified in this list, and the changes will be reflected in Slack.

d) Managing existing rules in Slack and Jira

Once a connection has been established, rules can be managed and modified both in Slack and in Jira. This means that rules created in Slack can also be modified in Jira, and vice versa.

However, it's important to note some specific behaviors:

• Since the app for Slack only allows one active rule at a time that applies to every project, it won't be able to read any rule created in Jira that is defined for a single project or for a JQL filter.
• For the same reason, whenever there are multiple active rules in Jira, the app will only take the first rule that applies to all projects. If that rule is deleted, it will then take the next active rule that applies to all projects.
• When a status-based rule is created in Slack, it will appear in Jira as an open ended rule (no end date). When the status is neithernor , the rule will be inactive.
• When an inactive status-based rule is activated manually from Jira, it will stop being linked to the Slack status. Instead, it will become a date-based rule with no end date (unless otherwise specified).
• Likewise, when an active status-based rule is deactivated manually from Jira, it will become a date-based rule with no end date.

Messages and bot functionality

The app doesn't have any bot functionality, and it doesn't send any messages to the user or to any Slack channels.

Pricing

The Jira Out of Office Assistant app for Slack is included in the Out of Office app for Jira cloud at no additional cost. 

Pricing is per user and varies based on the number of users. You can see some sample prices below.

For the full pricing details and to start a free evaluation for 30 days, access the Atlassian Marketplace listing. 

Privacy Policy

Read here about what data we collect with the app, how we handle it, and how you can exercise your rights.