Atlassian App-Spotlight - Timesheets, Planner and Budgets by Tempo

With more than 4,000 3rd party apps available, the Atlassian Marketplace offers a great amount of possibilities to expand the capabilities of Atlassian products. Scandio IT experts help select the most fitting applications and know which solutions have proven themselves in practical use.

This time, our Digital Solutions Consultant Jarek explains what he appreciates about Tempo apps for Jira, why he uses them in customer projects, and which solution also Scandio relies on. Jarek has been working in IT for 13 years and advises businesses across multiple sectors and industries, from medium-sized companies to large corporations.

The solutions by Tempo enable time tracking and management in Jira Software. While the company offers a whole suite of apps, I personally have the most experience with Tempo Planner, Tempo Timesheets and Tempo Budgets so I will focus on these three apps in specific.

As an IT consultant I generally support companies in digitizing their organization and processes. This means that I analyze a company’s existing systems, advise on the selection of suitable tools, and support both the (new) implementation and the migration to cloud. In this context, I also work with the Tempo apps mentioned. This can mean that the customer already has an existing configuration which is adapted by Scandio, retrofitted with missing functionalities or the solution is to be introduced completely from scratch.

All Tempo apps have in common that they extend Jira Software from Atlassian with new functions and features. But what benefits offer Timesheets, Planner and Budgets in detail and to what extent do they differ from or complement each other?

Functionalities of Tempo Timesheets, Planner and Budgets

Tempo Timesheets allows for - the name suggests it - time tracking in Jira; and that also in an automated way. With the app, users can report on time spent on resources, projects, departments and more. What sounds obvious should not be underestimated: Although competition with other time tracking tools may be high, it’s the many reporting configuration options that set Tempo’s solution apart. Another advantage is the interaction between Jira and Tempo as a single point of truth. Users can, for example, filter reporting results, group data according to their own requirements, or set up and manage a precise authorization structure on who can edit which information. Important: Tempo Timesheets in particular can only really be used if all activities are mapped by Jira tickets.

An efficient planning of your team resources around Jira is offered by Tempo Planner. Users have insight into the availability of their employees and team members and can plan capacities accordingly in real time - even for geographically dispersed and decentralized resources. Tempo Planner also offers the possibility to create your own filters in the user interface. Another feature: Tempo Planner is the only tool in the Atlassian Marketplace that allows planning for multiple resources on one issue.

With Tempo Budgets, users plan and monitor the financials of their projects, which includes costs, revenue, and profitability. The customization of the reports is also a focus of Tempo with this app. It should be noted, however, that unlike Planner and Timesheets, Tempo Budgets is not suitable for Cloud, but for Server and Data Center. For Cloud, Tempo offers Cost Tracker, an app for displaying project costs.

How our customers and we ourselves work with solutions by Tempo

The scenarios of app usage are diverse: each solution can be used meaningfully on its own, but in combination all three Tempo apps certainly offer exciting synergy effects, especially with regard to automated tracking of the status planned vs. actual. An example scenario:

A company uses Tempo Planner to set up its planning before the start of a project. Four developers are to work on the project for a total of 100 days, spread over the entire year. At this point, the time estimate can already be automated thanks to the Tempo app. As the project progresses, however, other tasks come up for the project members. The times recorded in Jira and analyzed with Tempo Timesheets provide a clear picture of the workload of the individual team members when compared with the planning values. Supplemented by Tempo Budgets, the project manager can clearly monitor whether the project work is within budget or if adjustment is necessary.

The Tempo apps can be implemented from scratch all at once, or they can be built up step by step. One of our customers for example did the latter some time ago. The company was already using Tempo Timesheets and Planner. After evaluating different solutions for budget planning and consulted by Scandio, the company also decided to use Tempo Budgets.

Alternatively, Tempo’s solutions can be used individually in a smart way as well, as I can confirm from my own experience: Our Scandio IT consulting team has been using Tempo Planner for a good two years now. The solution is connected to an external time tracking system and Confluence, and data is synchronized accordingly between the applications. As a result:

• planning is partially automated, including the synchronization of employee absences.
• we get a clear overview of project budgets and remaining project duration.
• targeted project staffing is particularly efficient for us thanks to the transparent planning of the coming few weeks.

Conclusion

For me, the apps by Tempo are characterized by the insightful data they offer as well as the high degree of configuration options for reports and user rights. The solution makes sense wherever Jira represents (almost) the Single Point of Truth and thus provides all the necessary data. The apps help the user to get the data needed to optimize how his/her team works. This is exactly what I like about Tempo solutions.