Currently, the Out Of Office Assistant doesn't publish an Out of Office comment when a customer replies to a request that is assigned to an agent with an active rule. However, you can create a workaround to reassign the request to the same assignee, thereby triggering the comment.

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Building the Automation

In Jira hit double g and search for "Automation Rules". Then add a rule like the following to each Service Management project where you want it to be active.

Every time a comment arrives in an issue and the assignee is out of office, it will reassign it to himself and so trigger his out of office rule.

Step 1: Trigger with an issue comment

• Go to triggers, and select: Issue is commented

Step 2: Evaluate whether the assignee is Out of Office

• Select a condition: JQL issues present
• Set the following JQL: assignee.outofoffice.today=1

Step 3: Exclude the author's comment from the automation

• Select a condition: JQL issues present
• Set the following JQL: assignee != {{issue.comments.last.author.name}}

Step 4: Create Smart Variable

• Select the Action: Create variable
• Select the Variable name: currentAssignee
• Enter the smart value: {{assignee.accountId}}

Step 5: Unassign the issue

• Pick an action: Assign the issue to
• Select Unassigned as the assignee

Step 6: Re-fetch data

• Add the action: Re-fetch issue data

Step 7: Assign the issue to the original user

• Add the action: Assign issue
• Set the smart variable {{currentAssignee}}