JIRA Automation Based on Calendar Events

[Vishakh Lakshmikanth]

We are using Atlassian JIRA and Calendar to manage tasks and want to create an automation in JIRA that automatically assigns tickets to team members. However, we need to enhance the automation to ensure tickets are not assigned to team members who are on PTO, as they typically record their PTO in the Atlassian calendar.

[John Price]

Hey Vishakh - 

When you say "they typically record their PTO in the Atlassian calendar" do you mean Team Calendars in Confluence Premium? If so, here's what I can tell you (others please verify):

• Pretty sure Team Calendars doesn't have a REST API (see https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/CONFCLOUD-51323)
• Even if it did, it might have a lot of overhead if multiple calls are needed, multiple calendars used, etc.
• You could do a thing where you periodically sync PTO data to a custom field in Jira (even something like "On Vacation" true/false and use that.

However, having run support teams myself, have you considered switching to a pull-based model? I prefer that as it mostly solves this problem.  For example:

• Tickets are in a JSM queue (I assume these are support tickets), prioritized as you wish by FIFO, severity, SLA remaining, etc.
• Agents pull from the top of the queue. Ayn Unassigned ticket is up for grabs.
• If agents have tickets in Waiting for Customer, they can grab another.
• Have an automation rule that looks for tickets that are not making progress. This handles OOTO users and forgotten tickets. That rule could send a Slack message to the team, set the ticket to unassigned with a comment, bump the priority, etc.

This is more empowering for the team and encourages communication. You could also just set an expectation that people close or reassign/unassign their tickets before PTO.