This article is for Tempo for Cloud.
Summary
Some customers want to plan work for a role before a named person is available, and they want that plan to show in Capacity Planner. Capacity Planner's documented option for this is generic resources, but generic resources do not appear in Structure. As a workaround, you can create an Atlassian service account and use it as a temporary dummy user. Because service accounts behave like standard user accounts in Jira, they can be added to the right Jira groups and then appear as users in Capacity Planner and Structure.
This is a workaround. Tempo does not use Atlassian service accounts as a planning concept, and the behavior below has not been documented by Tempo.
Background: what Tempo use today
Generic resources are the documented way to plan ahead without a named person. They are managed in Capacity Planner and Tempo Teams, and they appear in the Planned Time and User Capacity reports. They cannot be assigned to workload or holiday schemes. Generic resources are not available in Structure, and Structure has no generic resource option in its current version. See Planning Ahead With Generic Resources.
What Atlassian documents about service accounts
Per Understand service accounts, a service account is an account not tied to a person. It has no password for logging in to the organization. Admins create it in Atlassian Administration under Directory, then Service accounts. Admins can assign app roles and add the account to groups during creation or afterward using Add to group.
Limits depend on subscription. Organizations get 5 free service accounts. Atlassian Guard Standard supports up to 250, and the Enterprise subscription supports up to 1,000. Service accounts granted Jira or Confluence access do not count toward your app user limit. Creating service accounts requires the organization admin role.
Setup (for a planning placeholder)
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In Atlassian Administration, select Directory, then Service accounts, then Create a service account. Use a clear name and a description such as "Planning placeholder: Backend Developer role, Project X."
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Grant the app roles the account needs for planning. Add it to the Jira group that your Tempo permission model and project access rely on, the same way you would add a normal user.
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In Capacity Planner, confirm the account appears in Resource Planning and that you can create and view plans for it.
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Plan the work against the service account. Use a separate service account for each placeholder role, so you can reassign plans later.
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When a named person is found, reassign the plans from the service account to that person in the Resource Planning view. Then remove the service account from the groups or delete it, as your governance requires.
You do not need an API token or OAuth credential for this use case. Create credentials only if an integration needs them.
Permissions and governance
Treat each service account as a real identity. Give it the smallest set of Jira and Tempo permissions needed for planning. Do not add it to admin or broad-access groups. Permission checks in Capacity Planner apply to service accounts the same way they apply to users, so plans on a service account follow the same team and view rules as any other resource. Review service accounts regularly and delete any that are no longer used, because deleting a service account also removes its access and credentials.
Known limitations and open questions
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Tested behavior: service accounts that are in appropriate Jira groups appear as users in Structure and Capacity Planner. Tempo has not documented this, and results may change.
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Untested: whether service accounts can be assigned to workload or holiday schemes. Generic resources cannot be, so do not assume service accounts can.
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Untested: reporting details for service accounts in Planned Time and User Capacity reports. Confirm the output before sharing it with a customer.
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Untested: the reassignment path from a service account to a named user in Resource Planning. Check it in a test project first.
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Generic resources from Capacity Planner are not visible in Structure. This is a feature request, and there are no current plans to implement it.
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Tempo does not currently plan to add native service account support to Capacity Planner.
Recommended customer response
For customers who need placeholder planning now, the documented option is generic resources in Capacity Planner. If they also need that data in Structure, the service account workaround may help, but it is untested and unsupported. Set expectations that it may break, and that the permissions and reassignment steps need to be checked in their environment. Feature requests for generic resources in Structure and for native service account support should be submitted through the Idea Portal, where the product team can track votes.