PTO and Leave Tracker Recommendations for Jira Advanced Roadmaps

[Alexandra Wayne Harper]

I am looking for a pluggin or a process around how to track PTO and Leave in Jira that is compatible with Jira Advanced Roadmaps. I added PTO as an issue in jira but that doesn't seem to be the best way. It would be great to either get an add on or find out tips others have on tracking this in the tool. 

My company uses a google calendar to input their PTO and vacation days. It would be amazing if it there was a way to port that info into jira or just use jira instead. Please let me know!

[Alexey Panteleev]

Are any Atlassian product managers on this thread?

[Jaime Capitel _resolution_]

Hi @Alexandra Wayne Harper 

What would be your requirements for tracking PTO and Leaves? What do you expect to do with the information?

Would you for example expect users not to be assigned issues when they are away? Are you looking at ways to handle capacity and reacting to the actual workforce that is available at any given time?

[Alexandra Wayne Harper]

I dont want work scheduled while they are out of office - that also helps with capacity planning. Right now having it as an issuetype showcases it in the gantt chart and makes it clear to now schedule work over that time. It is a work around for sure..

[Jaime Capitel _resolution_]

I understand. It sounds like Out of Office Assistant for Jira Cloud could help you: users can create rules that reassign tasks assigned to them during their absence. These reassignments can also go to Unassigned. But in some cases, perhaps it's good enough to pick a delegate assignee to take care of things during someone's vacations.

Something else that would fit your use case:

• You can connect Google Calendar with Out of Office assistant via Zapier so that the PTO doesn't have to be maintained on two platforms
• To control issue assignments are canceled by the Out of Office, you can easily create a dashboard gadget that reports on this. The JQL that you'd be using is:

  assignee CHANGED BY "59fb203e1c0767667b2ce0ad" TO "-1"

  Where 59fb203e1c0767667b2ce0ad Where is the user ID associated to Out of Office Assistant in every instance, and -1 is the userID of Unassigned.

For full disclosure, note that I'm the product manager of Out of Office Assistant, which is developed by resolution GmbH, my employer.

I'd be curious to know if this would be helpful for you, or whether you are expecting to find something different. I agree that capturing PTO as an issue type is not ideal...

[Alexandra Wayne Harper]

Can this be visualized in Advanced Roadmaps at all?

[Jaime Capitel _resolution_]

That's a really good question. I guess the only visual queue in AR would be that the assignee is empty -- but I know that's not a very clear signal.

I'm going to do a bit of research to see if there is anything we could do with that. I'm not aware that developers can add anything to the advanced roadmaps views -- but I could be wrong.

[Alexandra Wayne Harper]

not sure if my company will allow zapier

[Jaime Capitel _resolution_]

Ok, I understand that. We're not considering developing our own integration for Google Calendar just yet, but if you have a strong use case around this, you may have a look at the Google Calendar API and do something on your own. 

The end goal could be to stitch it together with Out of Office Assistant, our API is quite well documented over here. If this is something you'd consider, let us know and we can assist in the process. But I am aware that it will require a lot more commitment in terms of effort!

Re the advanced roadmaps requirement -- unfortunately there is nothing we Atlassian developers can do there, there aren't any entry points for integrations/enhancements.