How to exclude users from workload balancer when OOO

Question

I was looking for some advice on how to exclude users from the workload balancer when they are out of office.

Currently I am just removing them from the automation manually but its a real pain.

I thought about using a group and just removing them from the group, but I don't have access to that function inside of Atlassian since my admin rights are just inside of the JSM/JIRA.

I'm wondering if it would be possible to create an issue type/Status, that is like Out of Office, and have the workload balancer NOT assign users who have one of these.

Open to anything here, if there are APP that would be good for down the road but right now looking for the free approach.

Jeremy.Rampe · Answer

Any idea what the JQL would be to restrict the Workload Balancer for this?

Mikael Sandberg · Answer

You have a couple of options, one is as you mentioned using an issue type for OOO that the automation is checking. Another option would be to use the on-call schedule in Operations, but you would then need to use a third-party app if you have more than one person on-call at the same time, I wrote about it in this article. A third option is to use an app like Smart Assignments and Rotations or one of the other apps in the Marketplace.