Awaywell documentation

Get started

1. Install Awaywell from the Atlassian Marketplace (Jira admin). Every site gets a 30-day free trial. After that it is $10 a month for up to 10 users, then billed per user.
2. Open Apps > Out of office and choose Plan time off.
3. Pick your first and last day away, who covers for you, and what should happen to your work. Click Save absence.

Awaywell shows up in three places:

• Apps > Out of office: your absences, who's away in the next 30 days, and what moved.
• Out of office in an issue's side panel: whether the assignee is away (or leaving within a week) and who covers that project.
• Jira settings > Apps > Awaywell (Jira admins): settings, everyone's absences, the full log.

Planning time off

Dates

Absences are whole days in your Jira time zone (Profile > Time zone). The first day starts at midnight; you are back at midnight after the last day. You can plan up to 400 days ahead, and one absence can last up to a year. Absences for the same person can't overlap; edit the existing one instead.

Who covers

• Cover for every project: one teammate covers everything.
• Different cover for a project: pick a project and a teammate. Project covers win over the default.
• A cover must be an active Jira user. A project cover must have the Assignable User permission in that project; saving checks it.
• If your cover is away too when an issue needs a home, their own cover for that project takes it (up to three steps). If the covers point back at each other, the issue stays with you and the log says why.

If you only choose a cover for some projects, issues in the other projects stay with you.

When the absence starts

• Give my open issues to my cover now, and back when I return: within 5 minutes of the start, every open (not Done) issue assigned to you in the projects Awaywell works in goes to your cover. Up to 2,000 issues per absence.
• Keep my open issues assigned to me: nothing moves at the start.

When someone assigns new work while you are away

• Reassign it to my cover: within seconds the issue moves to your cover for that project.
• Keep it assigned to me and post an out-of-office note: the issue stays with you and gets one comment: "Lena Fischer is out of office until Fri 23 Oct 2026 (back the next working day). Omar Haddad is covering." plus your note. On Jira Service Management requests the note is internal (agents only) unless your admin changed that.
• Do nothing.

If Awaywell can't reassign an issue (for example the cover can't be assigned in that project), the issue stays with you, and if you wrote a note it is posted so people know who to ask.

Approvals (Jira Service Management)

With Let my cover answer my pending approvals on, your cover is added as an approver on every request still waiting for your decision when the absence starts. They approve or decline in the normal approval screen. Awaywell never approves or declines anything itself.

This works when the request's approvers come from a people field (the standard Approvers field). If the approver comes from a group, an Assets attribute or more than one people field, Awaywell leaves the approval alone and the log says why.

Hand back on return

With Hand everything back on, on your first day back Awaywell returns:

• issues it moved that are still open and still assigned to the cover it picked;
• approvals: it removes your cover from approvals that are still undecided.

It leaves alone anything someone changed by hand (reassigned to someone else), anything finished while you were away, and approvals that were already decided. Each case is in What moved with the reason.

Back early? Press I'm back on your absence. Hand-back runs within 5 minutes.

What moved

Apps > Out of office > What moved lists every issue and approval Awaywell handled for you:

Common reasons for Not moved and the fix:

• "can't be assigned issues in KEY": give the cover the Assignable User permission in that project, or pick a project cover.
• "is deactivated" or "no longer exists": pick another cover.
• "No cover is set for KEY": add a default cover or a project cover.
• "point back at each other": two people cover for each other while both are away; pick a third person.
• "Jira refused the reassignment": the issue's workflow or field configuration blocked it; the Jira message is shown.

Planning for someone else

Jira admins can plan absences for anyone from Jira settings > Apps > Awaywell > Absences. An admin can also name a group (for example team-leads) whose members can do it from Apps > Out of office > Plan time off for someone else. Use it for sick leave or a holiday someone forgot to enter.

Admin settings

• Who can plan absences for other people: a Jira group. The group is checked when you save; Awaywell refuses a group that doesn't exist.
• Projects: all projects, only some, or all except some. Awaywell never reassigns, notes or delegates outside them. Project keys are checked when you save; if a project is later deleted, absences show Jira's message instead of quietly doing nothing.
• Show out-of-office notes to customers on service requests: off by default (notes are internal).
• Everyone can see who is away and who covers: on by default. Off: only the person, Jira admins and the managers group see absences, and the issue panel shows nothing to others.
• Default text added to every out-of-office note.

Subscription

If the subscription lapses, Awaywell changes nothing in Jira and absences can't be saved. Planned absences are kept; once it is renewed, absences that are still running start within 5 minutes.

Data and privacy

Awaywell runs entirely on Atlassian's Forge platform. Absences and the log are stored in your site's Forge storage; nothing is sent to Great Work or anyone else. Ended absences are deleted about 13 months after they end. Full policy: https://greatwork.company/apps/awaywell/privacy

Limits

• Changes happen within 5 minutes of an absence starting or ending; new assignments while away are handled within seconds.
• Up to 2,000 open issues are handed over per absence.
• Approvals are delegated only when the approver comes from a single people field.
• No calendar sync with Outlook or Google (that would send your data outside Atlassian).

Support

https://greatwork.company/support, or hello@greatwork.company. We answer within one business day (US Central time).