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Our recent Tempo Timesheets 7.8 release introduces a number of new features and improvements. One of the biggest changes in this release is the new Tempo Teams space, where team members and stakeholders can access high-level information about their teams.
Along with the new Tempo Teams space, we’ve reorganized Tempo’s Permissions and Roles to better suit the needs of our customers and to allow them to more flexibly group people on their teams, giving a better overview of their team efforts. We feel that it was necessary to introduce these changes to our customers to empower them to get the best out of this product.
In this blog post, we’ll walk you through the fundamentals of Tempo Teams, and how you can Manage Permissions, Create a Team, and Configure a Team in the new Tempo Teams space.
I. Managing Permissions in Tempo Teams
Our Tempo Teams functionality includes new permissions which give users different access to Team information depending on the permission level to which they have been assigned. These new Tempo Roles and Permissions features have been added for greater flexibility, allowing team leads to better manage their current teams, plan for future hires, and change roles as team members join and leave the team.
Team permissions can be modified through the Tempo Teams Configurations (see more details below). Teams permissions can be granted to users by associating them on an individual user level or on a group level.
There are now three permissions available for Tempo Teams:
Manage Team Permission
Those with the Manage Team permission (or, Tempo Team Manager) can create teams in Tempo and add members to these teams. This permission needs to be given by a JIRA Administrator to selected JIRA groups to handle the Teams’ administrative options in Tempo (note: the Manage Team permission is not a Tempo Administrator, unless this permission has also been granted by a JIRA Administrator).
Users with this permission can access the Administration and the Configuration tabs from a selected Team as shown in the screenshots below, which includes creating or deleting teams. 
With the Manage Team permission users can configure team information through the Team Configuration:
Approve Timesheets Permission
Tempo users with the Approve Timesheets permission can approve timesheets for team members if this feature has been enabled. They also have access to the Time Tracking link which, enables them to access their Team Timesheets, as shown below.
Browse Teams Permission
Those with the Browse Team permission can access our new Team overview page that displays basic team information.
All members of a team automatically have access to this Team space when assigned to a particular team. This is the lowest level of permission available in Tempo Teams.
Current team structure, roles, availability, and future members can be clearly identified in the new Team space. Each team member’s team role, commitment, and a link to their user profile can also be accessed here.
Team leads can link to specific projects and agile boards (if also using JIRA Agile) that the team is currently working on, so that team members can access all team information, including issues, sub-issues, tasks and other work items from the common Team space.
The following image shows how the Tempo Teams permissions intersect with one another.
Note: A Team Lead is considered a role and not a permission setting in Tempo. Team Leads have access to configure only the teams to which they are assigned. They have the Browse Team permission and Approve Timesheet permission to approve only their team members’ timesheets.
II. Creating a Team
To create a team, the Manage Teams permission is needed. Teams can be created or added in two ways, e.g. by clicking the New Team button, or by adding a new entry to the teams list on the Administration page.
A simple way to add a team, is to enter a Name and summary in the fields, as shown in the screenshot above, and clicking the Add button. Another way is to click the Create New Team button to open the Create Team dialog.
The Create Team dialog requires a Team Name, a Summary or short description, and a Team Lead (this should be a particular JIRA user). Click the Create button to finish or Cancel link to proceed without creating a team.
III. Configuring a Team
Teams can be configured by users with the Manage Teams permission, except that users who have the Team Lead role in Tempo can configure the settings for their own teams (Configure, Members, Permissions, Links).
Configure
To configure a Team, click on the Configure link in the left sidebar in a Tempo Team space (accessible from the Tempo top navigation menu), to open the Configure Team screen.
Various configurations are available for each team, e.g. Configure, Members, Permission, and Links.
In the Configure section you can assign a Team Lead to a Team, give a Name to the Team, write a short Summary of the Team, and designate its Mission.
Click the Save button once you’re satisfied with the configurations.
Members
To add and edit team members, click on the Members link in the left sidebar, which opens a Team Members screen.
Here, you can add a team member by typing the name of the JIRA user into the Users field. Next, choose a Role for the user from the drop-down menu. The default roles in Tempo Timesheets are: Designer, Developer, Member, Product Owner, Scrum Master, Technical Writer, and Tester, but custom roles may be added.
Next, designate the user’s Availability as a member of this team. This is 100% by default; however 75%, 50%, 25%, and 0% may be selected. The availability configurations may be useful, for example, when a user is working 50% for two different teams.
Finally, select dates for when a user is Joining and Leaving a team. This option is especially useful for future planning of new hires.
User configurations may be Deactivated or Updated by clicking the respective links to the right of the team member name. Click the Team Members link in the top left corner to go back to the main Team space once you’ve successfully updated your team member configurations.
Permissions
To designate permissions settings, click the Permissions link in the left sidebar under the Tempo Teams Configuration space, which opens the Team Permissions screen.
As mentioned above, three permissions apply to Tempo Teams: Browse Team, Approve Timesheet, and Manage Teams. If a user with Manage Team permission or a Team Lead wants to update these permissions, he/she can hover over the Users and/or Groups field and click on one of them to turn the field into edit mode. Click the Update to confirm changes or Cancel to opt out of the process.
Links
A JIRA Agile Board or a JIRA Project can be linked to any Tempo team. This needs to be done for team planning in our new Tempo Planner add-on for JIRA. Click on the Links link in the left sidebar which will open the Team Links screen.
Click on one of the fields to open a drop-down to link either an Agile Board or a Project to the team. Once an Agile Board or a Project has been selected, click the Link button next to the field. Note that many boards and/or projects can be linked to one team.
Eager to learn more about the new features and improvements in Tempo Timesheets 7.8? Check out our release notes and updated documentation pages to hone your Tempo Timesheets expertise.
Upgrading to Tempo Timesheets 7.8 is free for all customers with an active Tempo license. Free evaluations and license purchases of Tempo Timesheets for JIRA download and OnDemand may be obtained from the Atlassian Marketplace.
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