Hand open Jira issues to a substitute, and get them back

The problem

Before leave, people move their issues to a colleague one by one, or not at all. Afterwards, nobody knows which of the colleague’s issues were really theirs, and the work stays where it landed.

Step by step

1. Choose projects. An administrator selects the projects in which a substitute may take over issues. With none selected, nothing is reassigned anywhere. Within them, coverage runs only where the person may assign issues themselves.
2. Name a substitute. The person requests the absence and picks a substitute. Without one, no issues move.
3. Activation. When the approved absence starts, the person’s open issues in those projects (anything not in a Done status category, up to 5,000) are reassigned, and the app records which issues it moved.
4. Check gaps. Issues the substitute cannot be assigned to are skipped; the person’s page shows how many.
5. Hand-back. Once the absence is over, the issues the app moved and the substitute still holds go back to the person.

What to watch out for

Coverage follows the reference timezone, UTC by default; set yours so absences start on the right day. Absences run over every calendar day, weekends and public holidays included — working days only change the figure shown, never when issues move. A half day does not shift the hand-over either: the substitute covers the whole day. After changing settings, “Run activation now” applies them without waiting for the hourly job; projects added later only cover new requests. Issues the substitute passed on, or that were assigned to them in other ways, are never “handed back”.