Request and manage days off with Jira Service Desk💡 - Appsvio case study with configuration steps

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We don’t want different tools for every field in the company. One comprehensive tool for bug reporting, customer support, and even HR management is possible. Handling multiple ecosystems is labor-intensive but also expensive. You can stick to the Atlassian ecosystem programs and have one source of truth. We did it. Keep going to see the flow and configuration process.

Jira Service Desk as an HR management tool 

We needed a place to manage our days off, and we didn’t want to step outside Atlassian products because we knew them best and used them all the time. Keeping all processes in one is much more effective than using Excel or HR tools. You can use the native Jira Service Management workflow for request days off, but we needed a bigger picture: 

• A place where employees see their days off left
• Simple days off request form 
• Slack integration to notify the rest of the Team 

And we managed all of it with Jira Service Management and our own app, Customer and Organization Management.

The flow with 4 steps – HR Service Management and Delivery with Jira Service Desk 

We wanted to keep the flow as simple as possible, so we managed to minimize it to 4 simple steps. 

1. The employees enter the portal and select the appropriate request type
2. They report dates of days off, enter the number of working days, choose the type of leave (paid/unpaid)
3. The ticket is automatically accepted (in our case, we do not require leave approval from the supervisor) and closed
4. The notification comes up to the particular Slack channel, and it’s done.

Our Slack channel with notification about holidays

If employees want to find out how many days off are left, they need to open their Profiles. Sounds convenient, right?

Our configured Automation also emails the reporter with information about days off remaining. 

Profile with days off

Configure it by yourself – Jira Service Management with Customer and Organization Management in tandem. 

What do you need to do to create a system for managing days off like we did? 

First, you need Jira Service Management access and our app Customer and Organization Management – you can try it for a month. As you can see, this app is perfect not only for external customers but for managing internal processes as well. 

Configuration steps  🐾

Jira Service Management: 

1. Set up a dedicated service project for internal customers, in this case, employees: f.e. Appsvio Service Desk.
2. Important! Set up service project access to: Customers added to this service project only by agents and admins – thanks to that, it will be available only for employees.
3. Create a new Request Type: Request time off.

 Request type configuration

Customer and Organization Management app: 

4. Now, in Customer and Organization Management, we need to adjust the Customer view. This is the unique screen to manage all Customer data; even those extra you want to provide. So, Add field type Number: Available paid day-offs. Make it editable by only service agents, displayed on Issue View and Customer Portal.  

Customer and Organization Management form configuration

☝️Note: You can find all app configuration essentials info in the documentation. Designing a customer form is nothing complicated :)

Automotion time! ⚙️

1. Set up the Trigger with the condition: created request type “ Request time-off.”
2. Action: A summary is a place where the employee will specify leave days: Time-off for {{issue.reporter.displayName}} between {{issue.customfield_10171}} and {{issue.customfield_10179}}
3. Next Action: Send notification for special Slack channel: {{issue.reporter.displayName}} plan time-off between {{issue.customfield_10171}} and {{issue.customfield_10179}} 
4. If it is a paid leave, the app has an updated counter of paid days in the field. This is possible thanks to the Rest API that our app delivers. 
5. Next Action: send an email with a custom message about days off remaining. 

All automation proces bellow 👇

☝️Note: You can also link Customer Portal right in Slack to ensure everyone has easy access to this. 

Benefits of using Jira Service Desk as an HR Management tool

Internal processes like this can optimize company management. 

1. 👨🏻‍💻 Self-service approach – Employees don't have to ask anyone in HR how many paid vacation days they have left in the year. All they have to do is go to their profile on the portal, and they have the number shown. In addition, in one place (native view All request), they can see all the vacations they reported. It's a faster, more efficient way without engaging extra people. 
2. 🤝 Transparency – thanks to the Slack integration, we know when somebody is off. It's one source of truth about our planned holidays. Everyone can check it anytime about anyone. 
3. ⚙️ Full Automation in Jira – ​​using Automation eliminates extra work. You don't have to notify your Team that you will be off because Automation sends the notification by itself. The agent handling the notification doesn't have to manually enter the number of remaining vacation days because this is filled in automatically through Customer and Organization Management for Jira Service Management. 

Key takeaways: 

To sum up, remember a few things about your internal processes. 

• If you can automate something, do it
• Integrate your internal tools to make the most of it.
• Choose one tool instead of a few – one source of truth is easier to manage and keeps you on track. 
• Allow your employees or customers to be more independent – the self-service customer portal is a game-changer for your agents. 

Try to automate request days off in your Team, and let us know how it went! If you need to examine it more profound, we're always here to help. 

Enjoy your free days! Spend it well 🌴

[Gerardo Sosa]

Hello,

Can you post the automation picture process for the first five steps for the automation time? Thanks!