Tempo: Must it be connected to an issue? How do you use it for tracking work that's not an issue?

[mhulse]

Hello,

My employer has purchased Tempo for our company. 

From what I know of Tempo, it must be connected to an issue in order to track time.

This is a huge limitation for our company. We want to track time, but not everything we do is tied to an issue.

In my mind, it makes more sense to base the time tracking on the project (and then, maybe, an optional issue inside that project).

Because of this limitation, most of my coworkers have been using Toggl (it's just more flexible for non-issue issues).

With that said, how do you use Tempo when there's not an issue for the work needing to be done?

Example of work that would not be connected with an issue is phone calls or Go To Meeting calls that last for a couple of hours.

I'd love to know how others, who find themselves regularly the same situation as our company, utilize Tempo?

Is there a different time tracker that we could use? We do love the integration with Jira Cloud (that's something Toggl doesn't provide).

Thanks!

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

Yes, you're right, it has to be tied to an issue.

Tempo is working within the framework Jira provides.  Jira, at its heart, is an issue tracker, which means an issue is the absolute focus of what it does.  Because of that focus, there's simply nowhere else to really put other stuff.

You have instinctively hit on the approach most of us take - we create non-issue issues.  Or even entire projects for logging stuff that should not be logged against specific projects. 

Tempo itself helps with overhead type issues as well - see https://tempoplugin.jira.com/wiki/spaces/TEMPO/pages/172785882/Configuring+internal+issues+and+activities

But, however you get there... you log time on some form of issue.

[mhulse]

Ahhh, I see! Thanks so much for the help and informative reply @Nic Brough -Adaptavist-, I really appreciate it! We'll look into using internal issues. Thanks for the link!