Populate a Custom Field (Numeric Value) using time associated with specific Work Log Attributes

[Mackenzie Messmer]

To properly plan resources, I would like to estimate up front how much time should be spent (within certain classifications) on tickets (based on issue type and t-shirt size). I would then like to compare to actual hours logged by employees. Example: an XL Story should need 15 hours of 'Requirements Gatherings', 3 hours of 'Design Review,' 30 hours of 'Development', and 15 hours of 'QA  / Testing'. 

When employees log time (using Tempo plug in) they currently choose a worklog attribute that aligns with one of these time classifications. I have the idea to create 4 numeric value fields - one for each of these classifications of time logged. I would like to use the worklogs submitted to pull hours into one of the pre-defined fields and increment total whenever another worklog is created. Therefore creating a SUM of all 'Requirements Gathering' time logged in one field, a separate SUM of all 'Design Review' time logged in another field, and so on for 'Development' and 'QA / Testing'. Is this possible? 

[Mackenzie Messmer]

Planner appears to bee too tedious upon initial review. We have thousands of tickets throughout a quarterly release cycle and usually have upwards of 4-5 team members working on various aspects. My Project and Product Managers do not have enough capacity to break down individual planned tasks per user per ticket.

I've submitted a ticket with Tempo Help Desk for support. 

[Olha Yevdokymova_SaaSJet]

Hello @Mackenzie Messmer !

Budget planning can be one of the most challenging aspects of development, as plans can change unexpectedly.

I would like to recommend an add-on developed by my team, called Cost Tracker for Jira Cloud as an alternative solution. It is designed to assist with budget planning, with a particular emphasis on generating cost and time reports.

With Cost Tracker, you can effortlessly generate expense and time reports based on specific timeframes or the scope of work, such as issues, epics, or versions. Moreover, when generating a report, you have the possibility to include your planned budget, allowing for easy comparison with the current expenses.

The add-on follows a straightforward principle for calculating both company and project costs, which can be summarized as: People logs * People rates + Direct expenses.

Additionally, we support Tempo Worklogs, so you can continue using your preferred time-tracking tool seamlessly.

I hope you will find this add-on helpful for you. Let me know if you need further assistance!

[Dave Rosenlund _Trundl_]

Hi, @Mackenzie Messmer. I think you may find that this is one of those situations where it would be better to start with the goal, vs. the solution. I.e., there may be an easier way to get you to the result that you need, via a different path.

I say this because I honestly can't think of way of doing things exactly as you describe.

Then again, there are lots of ppl here on the community that are smarter than me and maybe (hopefully) I am wrong 😉

Assuming I am not, and because you are already working with Timesheets by Tempo, you may wish to investigate whether or not some of the related Tempo products can help you achieve your goal.

One is Planner, it is a companion product to Timesheets and it can help you on the sizing/planning side of things. Another is Cost Tracker and it is aimed at the other end of things (it may be the one you want to look at first). 

And then there is Structure by Tempo. With it, I think you'd be able to approach things more like you describe above — but not exactly -- thanks to it's integration with Timesheets.  Unfortunately, it does not yet have the ability to write Formula results to a Jira custom field, but that's coming.

If you want some assistance along these lines contact Tempo via their help desk to discuss your use case.  They'll line you up with someone from the customer success team or solution engineering team.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I suppose this is not really the help you were hoping for. So you may wish to consider working with an Atlassian Solution Partner.  They may be able to think of ways for you to accomplish your goals using what you already have and/or help you find the right add-on(s) — Tempo or other — to get you there.

Best,

-dave

[Mackenzie Messmer]

Hi @Dave Rosenlund _Trundl_  and @Olha Yevdokymova_SaaSJet !

Thank you for your replies here! I have tried working with each of these programs and unfortunately none of them give a complete picture of my data. 

Cost Tracker is far to high level and does not give any configuration options to customize how I need to see my logged time data. Just shows an overall SUM by ticket. I need to be able to break down the total hours logged into specific categories to know which teams / roles are appropriately staffed vs need more resources for remaining tickets in our sprints and releases. 

Structure has been the closest I have gotten, but struggles with the same as Cost Tracker - I have no way to break down total hours logged into categories.  I tried building custom formulas, but the ability to filter and sum hours by work attribute (aka activity type) from the worklogs does not currently exist. 

I am currently working on getting Planner configured to test with. I tested with this one initially but put it aside when I wasn't getting very far. I'll try again and apply some new creative solutions to my configurations to see if I can get it to work for what I need.