Every HR team needs a central place where employees can submit requests, ask questions, and find the answers they need. For our internal HR team, the challenge wasn’t a lack of information—but rather how to structure it all so employees knew where to go, who to ask, and how long things would take.

That’s why we turned to Jira Service Management (JSM) to build a dedicated HR portal—customized for our organization’s needs, yet scalable enough to support future growth. In this blog post, we’ll share exactly how we built it, what worked well, and the choices we made around request types, forms, automations, and reporting.

Step 1: Starting with a Single Use Case

Before diving into configuration, we began with a single, high‑priority HR process: Leave and Time‑Off Management

Why start here? It’s one of the most frequently asked‑about processes in any organization. Employees need a clear, dependable way to check their leave balance, understand policies, and make requests.

We used this request type as a baseline to define:

• Portal layout
• Request categories
• Required fields
• Notifications
• Approval flow

This one use case allowed us to test the end‑to‑end journey from the employee’s perspective and then build out additional HR services from there.

Step 2: Designing the Portal Structure

We organized the HR portal in JSM around 15 high‑priority request types, each mapped to a core HR function:

• Leave & Time‑Off
• Benefits Enrollment
• Payroll Questions
• Job Verification Letters
• HR Policy Clarifications
• Internal Transfers
• New Hire Requests
• Offboarding
• Employee Relations Concerns
• Compensation Adjustments
• Training & Development Requests
• Equipment Allocation (in collaboration with IT)
• Performance Review Submissions
• Employee Records Updates
• Visa and Immigration Support

We also created 15 low‑priority request types—less frequent, but still necessary for a complete HR support offering.

To keep things organized, we grouped similar requests under categories like “Pay & Benefits,” “Employment Status,” or “Workplace Tools.”

The portal homepage was kept intentionally simple:

• A search bar
• Four high‑level categories
• Quick links to popular requests (based on usage metrics)

Step 3: Building Dynamic Forms

Next, we configured forms for each request type using JSM’s native form builder. We aimed to collect just enough information to route and resolve the request without overwhelming the employee.

Examples:

• Leave Requests: start and end dates, leave type, and optional notes.
• Compensation Adjustments: manager’s name, justification, and effective date.
• Offboarding: HR fills out the request on behalf of the manager, with a compliance checklist.

We also used conditional logic so that only relevant fields appeared based on prior answers. This kept the forms focused and reduced back‑and‑forth due to missing details.

Step 4: Setting Up Queues and SLAs

Once forms were in place, we designed queues for different HR specialists. For example:

• Benefits team: insurance, leave, and reimbursement requests.
• Payroll team: filtered by pay period or region.
• Employee Relations: private queue for sensitive requests.

We applied custom SLAs to each category to track response and resolution targets:

• General questions: first response in 1 business day.
• Payroll or benefits errors: resolution in 3 business days.
• Urgent access requests (e.g., offboarding): resolved same day.

SLA metrics gave us monthly benchmarks to ensure consistent service across the HR team.

Step 5: Automations to Keep the Process Moving

To reduce manual overhead, we configured several automations using JSM’s native automation rules:

• Auto-assign by request type: routes tickets automatically.
• Notifications by stage: updates sent at received, in‑progress, and completed stages.
• Escalation triggers: alerts when SLA is nearing breach.
• Manager approvals: built-in approval workflows for transfers and compensation changes.

These automations improved turnaround time and removed manual tracking burdens from HR specialists.

Step 6: Integrating with Confluence for Self‑Service

To handle common questions without HR intervention, we integrated the portal with a Confluence knowledge base. This included:

• Policy documents (leave, PTO, holiday calendars)
• FAQs for health benefits and payroll
• Step‑by‑step guides (direct deposit setup, equipment requests)

When users typed a query into JSM, relevant Confluence articles were suggested automatically. Approximately 25% of visitors resolved their issues without submitting a ticket thanks to discoverable documentation.

Step 7: Reporting and Continuous Improvement

After 60 days, we reviewed reports on:

• Request volumes by type
• SLA adherence
• First response time
• Self‑service deflection rate

Insights led us to:

• Create an auto‑generated template for high‑volume Job Verification Letters
• Add automations and checklists to speed up Offboarding
• Schedule monthly HR Ops reviews to refine forms, automations, and knowledge base content

What We Learned Along the Way

• Start small and expand: pilot one use case, gather feedback, then scale
• Forms are your friend: collect exactly what you need—no more, no less
• Automated routing matters: misrouted requests cause delays
• Documentation is essential: self‑service reduces ticket load
• Data drives decisions: use reporting to optimize staffing and workflows

What’s Next

• Employee satisfaction surveys tied to closed tickets
• Multilingual support for global teams
• Dashboards for HR leadership on volumes, SLAs, and trends
• Collaboration with IT and Facilities on shared service portals

Final Thoughts

Building an HR portal in JSM helped us provide better service to employees, reduce back‑and‑forth, and gain clear visibility into our team’s workload. It didn’t require a complete overhaul—just thoughtful planning, feedback loops, and steady iteration.