Absence management for Jira, connected to Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace
People request time off in Jira and approvers get an e-mail. Once approved, the automatic reply and an out-of-office calendar entry are set in Outlook or Gmail, and open issues move to a substitute. Out-of-office planned in the mailbox comes into Jira, too.
Free trial through the Atlassian Marketplace. Billed through your Atlassian account.
What it does
An approved absence schedules the person’s automatic reply and an out-of-office entry in their own calendar, for exactly that time. Cancel it, and both are removed.
Out-of-office someone already planned in Outlook or Google, as a scheduled automatic reply or an out-of-office calendar entry, becomes an absence in Jira, as a request or approved right away.
While an approved absence is active, open issues in the projects you choose go to the substitute and come back afterwards. A hint on the issue says who covers and until when.
How it works
An absence moves through a small set of clear states: pending, approved, active, completed. Each step does one thing in Jira and, once connected, in the mailbox.
A team member requests time off in Jira — type, dates, half days, a substitute and, if they like, a private reason. Or they schedule an automatic reply in Outlook, and the import turns it into a request.
The approvers the request is routed to get an e-mail and decide in Jira, optionally with a note. The requester is told the decision by e-mail. With approvals switched off, requests are approved automatically.
The automatic reply and the calendar entry are already scheduled for the absence. On the first day, the person’s open issues in the covered projects go to the substitute, and the substitute gets an e-mail.
The automatic reply ends on its own at the scheduled time. Once the last day has passed, the issues the substitute still holds go back and the absence is completed.
A pending request in the approval queue. You are about to approve it.
Features
Each function states beside its name what it can touch: nothing in Jira, Jira issues, or the person’s own mailbox. The mail functions stay off until an administrator connects Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace.
Every Jira user requests time off from their own personal settings, and keeps track of it in one place.
The app’s global page: an approval queue for the people who decide, and a calendar of who is away.
Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace, connected once by an administrator: e-mails, automatic replies and calendar entries follow Jira, and out-of-office planned in the mailbox comes back. Off until switched on.
While an approved absence is active, open work goes to the substitute, in the projects an administrator chose, and comes back afterwards.
Where most people notice an absence: on an issue assigned to someone who is out.
One settings page under Jira settings → Apps, for Jira administrators only, with safe defaults so nothing blocks Jira before it is configured.
Keep personal data to what the work needs, and delete it when it is due. Everything stays in Forge storage for your site.
For service desks and larger teams
Jira has no manager field, a service desk queue does not wait for anyone’s holiday, and customers should not find out from a bounced e-mail that someone is away.
Connect with your own Entra ID app registration or Google service account, or grant consent to ours. Secrets are stored write-only in Forge secret storage; the settings page only ever shows whether one is set.
A typed-in address is never trusted. A mailbox is linked only after its owner enters a code sent to it, or, if you allow it, by the address Atlassian holds for the account within your domains.
Nobody can decide their own request, checked on the server against the stored record. Every settings and credential change is logged with who made it and when, never with the values.
Coverage, mail and import run as queued, idempotent jobs. A redelivered message never sends an e-mail twice or moves an issue twice; a throttled mail system is retried, a misconfigured one is not.
Security & privacy
The app runs on Atlassian Forge. Mail and calendar are off until an administrator connects your own Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace; then only what an automatic reply, a calendar entry or an e-mail needs goes there, and nowhere else.
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| Where does the app run? | On Atlassian Forge, inside your Atlassian tenant. We as the vendor run no servers in the path and never receive your data. |
| Does any data leave Atlassian? | Only once an administrator connects the mail system: names, mailbox addresses and absence dates go to your own Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace tenant. Never the absence type or the reason. |
| What does the import read? | The scheduled automatic-reply window and, of calendar entries marked out of office, only their start and end. Never a subject, body, attendee or location. |
| Who can link a mailbox? | Only its owner, with a code sent to it, or — if you allow it — via the Atlassian account’s own address within your domains. |
| What is stored? | Absence records, the configuration, linked mailbox addresses, what was written to or imported from each mailbox, and a change history, in Forge storage inside your tenant. Credentials in Forge secret storage. |
| Can personal data be deleted? | Yes. An administrator can delete all data of a person in one step — including their mailbox link and the automatic reply and calendar entries the app wrote — and closed accounts are cleaned up every week. |
| Runs on Atlassian? | No, because of the connection to Microsoft or Google. The sibling app “Out of Office & Absence Planner” has no mail integration and is. |
Use cases
Each guide walks through one situation with the parts of the app that handle it, and names what to watch out for.
Set the Outlook automatic reply and calendar entry from an approved absence.
Read moreBring out-of-office already planned in Outlook or Google into Jira.
Read moreGmail vacation responder and Google Calendar, set from Jira absences.
Read moreKeep a service desk moving while an agent is on holiday.
Read moreRecord sick leave without telling the whole company, or Outlook, why.
Read moreGetting started, connecting Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace, every setting explained, FAQ and troubleshooting.
Read morePricing
Small instances
Free
On Jira sites with up to 10 users, with every feature, mail and calendar included.
From 11 users
Per user
Priced on your Jira user tier: all Jira users, not only service desk agents. The Marketplace shows the price for your tier.
Without an active subscription
Paused
New requests, decisions, settings and mailbox linking show a clear “subscription required” message instead of an error; e-mails and the import pause. Cancelling, unlinking and deleting data always work, and so does removing the automatic reply of a cancelled absence.
FAQ
Set up absence types and approvers, connect Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace and link a pilot group in under an hour. Jira keeps working while you do.
Absence Planner Sync