New: Jira Align integration with Tempo Timesheets

[#1]

Does your team need to record hours worked and the costs associated with those hours in your Jira Align reports? Now, you can do this via an integration with the Tempo Timesheets plugin for Jira, found in the Atlassian marketplace.

The Jira Align team released an update this past June in release 10.108 that allows teams to capitalize hours spent by individuals and teams. This adds a new dimension to program analysis for teams that want to roll up spend by hours, not just points.

Want to see how to use Tempo Timesheets with Jira Align? Watch this Loom!

Why track spend by hours instead of points?

When we work with customers on their agile transformation, we suggest that they take a lean approach to managing their product investments, which means focusing on the most valuable work first. That includes tracking progress to “roughly right” via a story points system, rather than down to the penny. This keeps priority work moving forward, preventing it from getting bogged down in details that may not matter in the big picture.

Yet, we know that even while organizations are making the transition from a traditional project portfolio management (PPM) to a more lean approach, they sometimes need to report out team hours worked at an hourly rate or billed hours for contractors. Also, groups within large enterprise organizations often have to make chargebacks from one business unit to another and need to track time on a cost basis. 

In this update, you can see expenditures based on hours or points. This view can help you in a number of ways:

• Product leaders can get a snapshot of the hours spent on their programs with a costs associated to each hour.
• Portfolio managers can view Program Increment (PI) funding allocations and costs, now in hours, per theme, all in one view. They can then set investment guardrails to guide how much of a PI’s funding is allocated to delivering a theme associated with a portfolio and PI.
• Utilizing business intelligence tools, transformation leaders can use Jira Align data to compare two different measurements – points versus hours to calculate spend – to demonstrate the value of a lean approach (i.e. sometimes you don’t need to track to the penny to be successful!)

How does this work?

In Jira, you can track hours by story or by subtask. When you add the Tempo Timesheet plugin to your instance, there will be a button that allows you to track and report hours in Jira. The Jira Connector will send those hours into Jira Align, and you can find them in the Spend tab of a feature, under the Accepted Spend Calc.

How do task hours get logged? 

Jira Align instances not connected to Jira allow team members to enter hours from a story or task’s Details panel. When Align is connected to Jira Software, hours must be logged within JSW or through Tempo Timesheets. 

Can I use both Tempo Timesheets and Jira’s native timesheet functionality?

Not at the same time, no. You must choose what timesheet app to use, native or Tempo, within the administration settings of Jira. 

What happens when a person who is not a member of the team logs hours?

The team member is automatically added to the sprint and team inside Jira Align, so that their hourly rate and task hour contribution can be accounted for. 

What if I forget to log task hours and the sprint has concluded?

Enter your task hours, and Jira Align will recalculate the Accepted Spend value. 

Want to see more? Reach out to your TAM or, if you're not yet a Jira Align customer request a demo.

[Jimi Wikman]

"Want to see more? Reach out to your TAM or, if you're not yet a Jira Align customer request a demo ."

Just want to point out that that link does not provide access to a demo. It is just a form that will give you access to the videos that are available both on YouTube and here in the Align forum under the Videos tab.

As for the announcement itself, it looks very good! Hopefully we will see more Jira Align setups with this add-on.

[Peter Jessen]

.. Wrong profile

[Peter Jessen]

FYI. The Loom video doesn't launch when clicking on the link.

[edwin vasquez]

Sounds like a great feature. 

[Katherine Gray]

@Peter Jessen Thank you for that heads up! Should be fixed now. Let me know if you can't access the Loom. 

[Peter Jessen]

I can access it now @Katherine Gray

[Oran Halberthal]

Thanks for posting Katherine, it looks like it will give us exactly what we need.

I had one question though, we need to report time logged at a portfolio epic level in Jira Align. Will the time logged on Jira Align features (stories/sub-tasks in the associated Jira Software epics) automatically roll-up to a portfolio epic level?

[Rob Boyaval]

You are correct @Oran Halberthal - the Accepted Spend of the portfolio epic can be calculated from the story/sub-task hours.