OnDemand Time Tracking (Approving/Rejecting Time by Entry)

Question

I'm intersted in figuring out a way for specified users (defined by a group) to review and accept/reject individual time entries/work log descriptions of other users. I would also like the individual that entered the time entry being rejected to receive some email or other notification so that they know go back and update the time entry.

There's Tempo, but I haven't yet been able to confirm that actually can do this and am concerned that the inability to disable the standard JIRA log work module on OnDemand would lead to significant confusion by other users(http://feedback.tempoplugin.com/knowledgebase/articles/9335-how-can-i-disable-the-jira-log-work-dialog-). I've spent a fair amount of time reading up on Tempo and am also not sure if would be fully compatible as we already have fields in place/use that define things like Customer Name/Specific Project. Tempo seems to need to use a field called Account, which needs to be a special Tempo field.

Has anyone had any success implementing such a workflow on an OnDemand system and, if so, how did you do it? Any pointers (whether you did it using Tempo or using some other method) would be much appreciated here. Thanks!

jzschau · Answer

In your response about user confusion, "there will be some," is that because of Tempo's additional features may generate some confusion at first, or does adding Tempo create a situation where users need to be told not to use the standard JIRA Log Work (from the More menu when viewing an issue or during workflow transitions) options because time entered through those channels will not be correctly tracked in Tempo?

Remigiusz Jacko · Answer

Tempo extends existing fields. It adds extended info into their own tables and values like "time tracked" on issue into standard issue field. That's why your existing reports should work.

About Advanced Reports, I've never used this functionality, but I think it will have to use Tempo's extended data and won't show all the functions on work logs created before Tempo.

About users confusion, there will be some. But after you show them how "Tracker" addon works, they will always use it.

jzschau · Answer

Thanks for your response. I guess I'm getting confused by this:

https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/JRA-23935

https://answers.atlassian.com/questions/129561/how-do-tempo-and-jira-s-work-log-correlates

I initially interpreted this as meaning that Tempo used some other system for tracking time. For example, once Tempo is activated users would need to log work to issues through Tempo and, therefore, would need to be instructed not to log work in the ways they previously have (i.e. by Logging work directly to an issue from the More menu while viewing an individual issue). Moreover, because you cannot remove the Log Work option from the More menu and the Work Log tab from the issue view on OnDemand instances, my concern was that users would become confused because those options would need to remain but correct work logging would now need to be done through Tempo only.

I'm guessing that this interpretation is incorrect and that if I were to add Tempo all pre-existing work logging functionality within JIRA will remain the exact same and that the only changes will be the additional features offered by Tempo -- there will be no fundamental changes to the existing time-tracking related systems within JIRA.

Also, we already have a cascading field in place, which we use to track the Customer Name/Specific Project. I'm guessing that this would not be a problem if we were to use Advanced Reports (https://tempoplugin.jira.com/wiki/display/TEMPO/Advanced+Report) as if I'm reading this correctly we could generate a report that, say, displays all time entered for a given month based on any other criteria we set up in a JIRA filter such as Customer Name = Customer A. Is that a correct interpretation of the Advanced Report functionality?