Event Notifications

Introduction

By default, the Teamployees plugin does NOT generate any notifications for newly created vacation requests. If an Approver is selected when creating a vacation request, the request will appear in the Approval List tab, where the designated approver can either approve or decline it:

Example: List of vacation requests requiring approval

However, in the Event Notifications section of the settings, you can specify a project in which the Teamployees plugin will create special Jira issues when a vacation request requires approval.

Such an Jira issue will contain the name of the selected Approver as the Assignee, and the name of the User who created the vacation request will be indicated as the Reporter. Here is an example:

An example of a Jira issue that contains a vacation request

Changing the Jira issue status to Event Approved or Event Declined changes the vacation request status.

This way, the Teamployees plugin makes the vacation request approval process as native to Jira as possible. Assignee and Reporter will receive notifications about new issues, as well as changes in their status, in the usual way via email or in the Jira notification panel. In terms of functionality and capabilities, these are regular issue in a Jira project.

You can even get notified about new vacation requests by setting up an integration with Slack or Microsoft Teams.

Setting up Event Notifications

Here's how you can configure it so that vacation requests that require approval are created as Jira issues.

Creating a project

For the vacation request approval process, it is recommended to create a separate empty Jira project of the type Company-managed business. Please follow the guide below:

In the Projects menu in your Jira instance, click on the create new project button. Then, in the window that opens, in the Work management section, select the template called Blank project:

Specify the following fields:

Name: Give the project a name of your choice, for example "Vacation Requests" or simply "Vacations". In our case, we will name the project "Teamployees (Vacations)" for clarity.
Project type: Click Show more to open additional settings. And in the Project type drop-down list, select the Company-managed type.

Finish by clicking the Create project button:

Additionally, you can make sure that the new project was created with the required type Company-managed business:

Go to the plugin settings section by the following path: Apps → Manage apps, and then in the left menu column go to the Teamployees Configuration section in the Event Notifications tab.

Specify the following fields:

Project: Select the project in which Jira issues with vacation requests will be created. We recommend using an empty Jira project created specifically for this purpose. Alternatively, you can use an existing project, but additional setup will be required as explained below.
Description: If necessary, change the default text that will be displayed in the Jira issue.

Click the Confirm button to continue:

After a short check, you will see a yellow message. To implement the vacation approval process in the selected Jira project, you must manually approve the publication of the new workflow scheme.

Just follow the Publish Workflow Draft link and publish the changes to the workflow scheme:

Clicking on the link will open a new tab in your browser, then confirm the changes by clicking on the Publish button:

If you are using an empty Jira project as recommended, no migration is required, just click the Associate button to continue:

If you want to use an existing Jira project that is set up for different purposes and a different workflow scheme, the current status of each issue needs to be changed so that it is compatible with the new workflows from the Teamployees plugin.

Match the new statuses Waiting for Event Approve, Event Approved, Event Declined with the existing statuses in your project, for example:

Next, click the Associate button to continue.

It will take some time for the new workflow to publish, after which you will see a message indicating a successful migration:

Go back to the Teamployees Configuration section and refresh the browser page. If all the previous steps were performed correctly, you should see a green message indicating that the configuration is complete:

Approver is required

The Approver field is not required by default when creating vacation requests. However, this setting can be adjusted to align with your organization's specific process for creating and approving vacation requests.

Open the Teamployees plugin settings:

To make all vacation requests mandatory for approval, choose the Approver is required option in the general settings and click the Save button:

Setting up the Approver list

You can select specific users within your organization who will have the authority to approve or decline vacation requests.

Open the Teamployees plugin settings:

Uncheck the option Allow all users to approve events in the general settings. Next, select the users from the drop-down list (one or more) who will be responsible for approving vacation requests and click the Save button.

As a result, only the specified approvers will be available when submitting a vacation request: