Staff at @sflakesoftware hate timesheets -> install @tempoplugin into @atlassian #jira -> staff love timesheets

— Ian Painter (@iapainter) February 21, 2012

As an example, when we released Resource Planning in Tempo, we quickly learned from our customers that many of you want Issue Planning. The idea in our Ideas Forum reached wooping 80 votes. We are very excited to be able to offer the ability to plan people on issues in JIRA 5.

We are very happy about the amount of feedback we get from you. Keep the ideas coming in, 2012 is going to be a great year for timetracking.

we have started using Jira @tempoplugin for @espardino and @nbee_sl, it’s just AWESOME, it will be really helpful to learn and to plan ahead

— Espardino (@espardino) September 11, 2011

Tempo 7 is now available for download. Seeing is believing, watch what is new in Tempo 7.0 and tell us what you think. Got a great story to tell us, tweet it!

Give Tempo a Go

• To learn more about Tempo, try it free for 30 days
• Purchase Tempo and add it to JIRA
• Check out all the features of Tempo here
• Read testimonials and Case Studies

Tempo Planning

In Tempo 6.2 we first introduced high level planning for an ‘Activity’.  An ‘Activity’ is a ‘Project’, ‘Version’ or a ‘Component’.

Internal Activity for Planning was introduced in Tempo 6.4 This can be quite useful for those planning out of office activities such as vacations. Check out his blog and the video below.

 Account Management in a User Interface

This highly requested feature allows users to manage accounts (billing keys) easily in a user interface. This provides an easy way to add and edit accounts, customers and categories.  JIRA admin has to enable this feature or import keys via CSV or a webservice as in previous versions.

 New Tempo Reports Preview

Tempo 6.3 included a sneak peek of Tempo 7 next generation reports as a preview. The biggest change is that the reports are more tabular than before and worklog attributes have been moved to a column and don´t need to be expanded from the report filter view. The print view has also been improved from the old report format.

 Tempo Gadgets

We added and improved a few gadgets in 2011 that can be used in JIRA or Confluence.
User Gadget shows an overview of user’s time tracking and planned activities.

People in Version maps the people working in a particular version in a gadget-based view, and shows the hours they’ve worked on that version, the gadget also shows planned time.

Tempo gadgets can be viewed as a Wallboard if the JIRA Wallboards plugin is installed.

The Team Gadget is designed for Tempo administrators and allows them to view the details of the time-sheet status of all members in a team. The gadget displays hours required, hours planned and hours worked for the current period for each team member. Timesheet approval status is also displayed.

 Improved User Interface and Usability

We made massive UI changes with Tempo, that aimed towards a unified experience from timesheet to reports. We also made many usability enhancements to speed up common tasks such as making inline editing in a timesheet possible.

We also made it easy to view worklogs and planned activities per day in the timesheets.

With just a drag of the cursor, users can now log work for a period within a given timesheet, making the logging process as simple as possible. This exciting new feature can’t be captured with a mere picture – try it yourself. This can also be done with planning.

Tempo for Atlassian OnDemand

Tempo is now offered as a an integrated part of the Atlassian OnDemand cloud platform.  Atlassian OnDemand takes our popular time tracking and resource planning suite into the cloud, providing your team with better ways to plan, track and adapt time.

2012 and Tempo

The tempo team has been working extra hard getting Tempo 7 ready for launch and we promise more exciting improvements and features for Tempo users in 2012 and beyond.

Learn about Tempo 7:

• 7 reasons to look forward to Tempo 7
• Meet the Account Search Family 

Try Tempo Free for 30 days

Stockholm Atlassian User Group

The Stockholm Atlassian User Group is currently being established to encourage new and current users of Atlassian products to share knowledge and best practices with each other. Pétur will demo Tempo 7.

Date: March 1st, 2012
Register
Tempo: Pétur Ágústsson

Atlassian Unite – Paris

We are sponsoring the first Unite event in Paris and we will be presenting Tempo and looking forward meeting our French friends in the lovely Paris.

AtlasCamp Europe

We are happy to be part of the first Euro AtlasCamp and we are sending our core Tempo development Team to participate and learn from other like-minded people around the globe.

Date: March 22nd-23rd 2012
Register

Tempo Team: Bjarni Thorbjornsson, Kristín Hreinsdóttir, Benedikt Bjarni Bogason

Atlassian Summit San Francisco

The grand daddy of all Atlassian events is going to be bigger this year, and we are sending almost half-dozen Tempo experts to the event. We encourage customers to tell their story about Tempo and other Atlassian tools. You can submit it here, due by March 7, 2012. Come and experience the magic and we will promise to announce something new and exiting at the Summit.

Date: May 29th – June 1st 2012
Register - Call For Speakers - Register

Tempo Team: Agust Einarsson, Petur Agustsson, Vidar Svansson, Hannes Agnarsson Johnson, Sverrir Tynes

Looking forward meeting customers around the world. We will keep you posted as we add destinations to our road-trip.

• Those who are evaluating Tempo
• Tempo customers that want to learn more about Tempo 7 or Tempo in general
• JIRA user that need to improve their time tracking

Reserve your Webinar seat (space is limited) now at: owl.li/8PoFn

This session will be recorded and made available online afterwards.

Meet the Account Operators

We are supporting three operators to search for accounts in Tempo 7. All operators work on the account key that is set on the issues using the Account custom field.

The equals operator is for queries for a specific account. It allows you to ask “which issues do belong to the external expenses account for ACME?”.

Account = “EE-ACME-12”

Note that the key is of course something you control unless you have mapped Tempo keys with external financial system. This example assumes that all accounts are on the format {account category}-{customer-key}-{account number}. Having a good pattern for account keys is important to memorize and identify keys.

The IN operator makes it possible to query multiple accounts. This allows you to search for all issues for a certain customer or any other use cases that depend on multiple accounts. It is also very powerful to set up advanced reports in Tempo or if you like to work in KanBan mode on accounts using the Rapid Board in GreenHopper.

Account IN (“EE-ACME-12”, “IE-ACME-12”)

Lastly, we have the IS operator. Want to find issues that have no associated account? No problem. Just search for issues where

Account is EMPTY

If you need the negated result from the search then that is possible with the negation operators.

 Account != “EE-ACME-12”
 Account NOT IN (“EE-ACME-12”, “IE-ACME-12”)
 Account IS NOT EMPTY

Meet the Account Functions

The IN operator is very powerful but it can be difficult to enumerate every account that you need in your query. Specially if you have a lot of accounts. We are making this super-simple with four new JQL functions that work on accounts.

The accountsByCustomer() returns every account for a specific customer. With this function you can find all open issues for a specific customer, set up a Rapid View board in GreenHopper, or even create a custom filter based on several customers that can be used to generate custom reports in Tempo.

Account IN accountsByCustomer(“ACME”)

Similarly for account categories, accountsByCategory() enables you to segment issues on account category, such as “billed”, “invoiced”, “internal”, or whatever grouping of accounts you need.

Account IN accountsByCategory(“BILLED”)

For multi-project accounts, it is useful to get all accounts for specific projects. This is possible with the accountsByProject() function.

Account IN accountsByProject(“JTMPO”, “JRA”, “GHS”)

Finally, we also provide a convenient function for global accounts. Global accounts are accounts that are not related to specific projects and can be associated with any issue in JIRA.

Account IN globalAccounts()

Mix and Match

The real power comes when you add other JQL clauses to the mix. This helps you answer questions like:

• How many issues are outstanding on LutherCorp?
• How many hours did we spend last month that are not billed externally?
• What are our employees working on in their 20% time?
• Which project has most support requests from external customers?

Best Practices

Tempo Accounts give you a lot of power and with it comes some responsibility to admins so the system can be used as effectively as possible. Some things to consider when setting up accounts and using the search and account reports are:

• JQL search only works on issue level. This means that it won’t work with accounts set at worklog level as a worklog attribute. If possible, prefer to set accounts on issues as the Account custom field over using the Account Worklog Attribute. Otherwise you won’t be able to use the account JQL search for time reporting purposes.
• Global accounts do not perform as well as accounts assigned to projects. That is because global accounts require a larger initial query to find related issues and worklogs
• The account JQL functions work on keys, not names. This means that you should carefully name the keys for accounts, customers, and categories. Think of them like project keys. Short descriptive keys are better than long numerical keys. Compare accountsByCustomer(“ACME”) to accountsByCustomer(“220001717”).

Want more flexibility?

We believe that the functions available in Tempo 7 solve most use cases for you. If you have a function that you think we should support, please tell us about it.

1. Tempo Activity Streams

Until now, it has often been difficult to monitor Tempo events in JIRA. With the new integration features of JIRA Activity Streams, we can finally deliver important events to users directly to their dashboards through activity streams. Tempo 7 will ship with support for all major administrative events, such as closure of periods, timesheet approval workflows, and opening of grace periods for users.

Setting up activity streams is super simple with the Activity Stream gadget. You simply select the Tempo provider from the configuration view and you are all set.

2. Issue Planning

One of the most popular feature request since we released high-level resource planning with Tempo 6.2 is the ability to plan time directly on issues. With Active Objects integration in JIRA 5, we are pleased to announce that Tempo 7 will support a full fledged issue planning feature.The issue page now includes a new panel named Collaborators, which shows all users that are scheduled to or have collaborated on the issue and their progress. We believe this to be a great solution to have multiple “soft”-assignees on an issue and per-user estimates. Planning time is as easy as clicking the plus button in the right corner of the Collaborators panel, or from the issue action menu.

Planned time on issues is also available in the timesheets and reports. The hours are aggregated to higher level entities, such as versions and projects, making it easy to have an overview of user or team schedules.

3. Weekly Approval Process

Another frequent request we receive is to be able to have users submit their hours weekly. JIRA 5 integration features have made it possible for us to deliver this feature with support for Activity Streams and reliable storage of historical data.

4. Tempo Calendar

Integrating planned time in timesheets and reports makes it easy to compare scheduled versus logged work. However, we feel that it is important to be able to view schedules in a manner more familiar to users. That is why we are adding a new calendar view that is available for users, teams, and projects.

5. Advanced Timesheet

Using filters in JIRA is a powerful way to set up your work context. We introduced support for filters in User Timesheet with Tempo 6.3 that allows users to append issues based on a search to their personal timesheet. With the new Agile Rapid Board in GreenHopper and with an increased adoption of filters for project management, we feel that it is important to support filters as a primary part of Tempo. The Advanced Timesheet in Tempo 7 supports any of your own or favorite filters, making it easy to track time if you are using kanban or other complex use cases that don’t fit in the traditional team or project scope. We will be adding JQL functions to enable users to construct searches based on Tempo specific data. The first one was added in Tempo 6.4 to search for issues based on a Tempo Team.

6. Big Account Changes

Accounts Overview

We are working on making Accounts more useful for managers. Tempo 6.3 introduced the ability to manage accounts in JIRA admin via the Account Manager. Tempo 7 adds a new section to JIRA called Accounts that makes it possible for Tempo administrators to access account information without going into JIRA admin. The Account page displays accounts by customer with high level account information.

Account Timesheet

It is now possible to view accounts based on customer or account lead in the Account Timesheet. It allows you to see workload over the period for each account with quick access to the account approval process.

7. Also Major Usability Overhaul

We have redesigned many of the major components of the Tempo UI to make it easier to find the timesheet you are looking for and jumping between views with a single click. The navigation menus now support searching so you can quickly find the report you are looking for. We added a new bar to quickly jump between timesheets and reports. The Top header has also been changed to take less space, putting the timesheet closer to the top of the browser.

This is only the start

This post is only the top of the iceberg. Tempo 7 is probably the biggest Tempo release yet and includes many more features and improvements. Stay tuned for more information on the release date and specific features. If you would like to receive early access to Tempo 7 that will be available in just a few days, please sign up for our Beta program.

We’ve been supporting Room to Read for a while now. It all started 2009 at the Atlassian Summit when we heard John Wood, the founder of Room to Read, give a keynote speech about their charity work. We liked the cause and we want to continue supporting them – now with an extra push, with a little help from you :)

Current estimation of our donations to Room to Read for 2011 is about $7,000 but we want to set the goal high and we are aiming for a total of $10,000 in donations to Room to Read for the year 2011.

In case you haven’t heard about Room to Read before here is a bit about the organization:

Room to Read seeks to transform the lives of millions of children in the developing world by focusing on literacy and gender equality in education. Working in collaboration with local communities, partner organizations and governments, we develop literacy skills and a habit of reading among primary school children and ensure girls have the skills and support needed to complete their secondary education.

If you’ve been considering getting a starter license of Tempo now is definitely the time. You’ll be able to help twice as many children :) We would really appreciate it if you would help us reach our goal of $10,000 in donations for the year 2011. You can get a Tempo starter license here.

The old blog was just pages in the same CMS as the main website which wasn’t really tailored to blogging. So we’re separating those two: www.tempoplugin.com for the e-commerce part of Tempo and blog.tempoplugin.com for the blog. We also have support and documentation sections over at feedback.tempoplugin.com and wiki.tempoplugin.com

The blog is now running on WordPress (the most popular CMS in the world), hosted by WP Engine (they also host the blog for Atlassian, Foursquare and other smart companies) and uses a CDN to make sure it loads up fast.

If you have any feedback please let us know by adding a comment. Do you like the changes? Do you have any suggestions? You can also contact the Tempo team here.

• Painless time tracking
• Resource planning
• Management for customer and billing
• Time sheet approval processes
• Full blown API
• Deep integration with JIRA GreenHopper

Having a fully integrated solution provides far better environment to work with time tracking, resources and expenditures. It is easy to drill down from Tempo to GreenHopper and then from GreenHopper into JIRA. Tempo quickly becomes a part of your team’s or even your whole company’s workflow.

Why do you need time tracking?

• Staff is logging hours in multiple systems (billing system, task system, and bug-tracking system)
• Staff is under pressure from administrators to enter hours into the billing system while simultaneously being pressured by Project Managers to enter hours into task and bug systems
• The process of adjusting approving time-sheets and billable hours info is tedious and time-consuming
• Clients do not see any value in the billing sheets generated by the billing system
• Your processes do not cohere with your agile/lean efforts
• Staff and management are frustrated by the overall process
• The path from hours worked, to hours logged, to hours billed is a vastly inefficient journey and requires a lot of manual entry of data
• Financial system is not tied into the solution

“Tempo and JIRA are a great combination at any company. Even if you don’t currently think you need to track time, I would strongly recommend you develop that culture. It’s a culture of communicating and it helps everyone make decisions about how they use their time. The most important tool that any leader has, is simply how we use our time. If we don’t know what we’re doing, then we can’t make decisions about how to use this most precious resource.”

Michael Rainwater, Director of Engineering at Balfour

See Tempo in action in OnDemand:

Just One Click Away

Tempo is tightly integrated into the Atlassian OnDemand cloud platform. To start your journey towards painless time tracking and resource planning with OnDemand, all you need to do is to enable Tempo, which will start a 30 day free trial.

• Work activities need to be planned around staff vacation or out of office time or schedule and activities are distorted.
• Manager and team leads need to have overview of their staff’s vacation time to manage project expectations
• The ability to change plans quickly is needed because people’s availability changes quickly

The Tempo solution

Tempo provides a way to plan activities such as vacation, by defining them as global activity available to all Tempo users by project, component or version.

• Tempo provide a quick way to specify time off and vacations and to incorporate it into their planning and time sheets.
• Time off and vacation are entered as a global activity available to all Tempo users by project, component or version.
• Time off and vacation appear in time sheets without appearing as worklogs.
• Tempo users can enter their time off or vacations or if desired this may be restricted to Tempo admins
• If time off and vacation plans change, modification can be made inline for each plan by clicking on it and either change the dates or delete the time or vacation plan all together.
• In our internal testing, we found a huge difference in overall success of a plan especially in communication and satisfaction when the staff can actually see their own private plan in their personal timesheet.

We are far from being complete with planning in Tempo and we encourage users to get back to us with feedback so we can make the product even better.

The video demonstrates the following:

• How to set up vacation activity
• How the employee plans his vacation
• How a manager can plan other’s time and take into account capacity
• How a manager gets overview of out of office time for his/her team

Give Tempo a Go

• To learn more about Tempo, try it free for 30 days
• Purchase Tempo and add it to JIRA
• Check out all the features of Tempo here
• Read testimonials and Case Studies