By design, Out of Office Assistant publishes Out of Office comments in Jira issue when:

• the issue is assigned
• and the assignee is out of office.

However, it's possible to work around these constraints with Automation for Jira. In this tutorial, we will show how to send an Out of Office comment when:

• a comment is added to the issue
• and the reporter is out of office

The result will be a generic comment that applies to all users and is posted by Automation for Jira

Prerequisites

• Out of Office Assistant for Jira 
• A Project Admin role that can create and edit Automation rules in Jira

Automation rule details

Step 1: Set the a trigger for all comments

Step 2: Restrict to issues where the reporter is out of office

To do that, simply use the following JQL:

reporter.outofoffice.today=1

Step 3: Apply the branch to the current issue

Step 4: Set the action for adding a generic Out of Office comment

{{reporter.emailAddress}}, the reporter of this issue, is currently absent. Please check their profile in the Out of Office User View for more details: 

https://yourdomain.atlassian.net/projects/PKEY?selectedItem=com.atlassian.plugins.atlassian-connect-plugin:outofoffice-connect__user-rules-overview

Making changes to the workaround

• The workaround is somewhat flexible, and can be repurposed for other triggers supported by Automation Rules, like an issue transition
• However, note that the JQL must either include the issue reporter or the assignee, as they are the only roles supported for Out of Office statuses.