Our amazingly talented Tempo Budgets team has been working diligently through the last few sprints to deliver our Tempo Folio 8.0 release for JIRA. This version introduces integrated Tempo Teams functionality, including team allocations, centralized cost rates, and improved performance on the portfolio level to answer the needs of some of our largest enterprise customers. Now you get better efficiency, transparency of information available to you, and integration with all Tempo solutions across the board.
Keep your teams in sync with full Tempo Teams integration
Tempo Folio now fully integrates with Tempo’s core Tempo Teams, so you can easily sync up with our other Tempo Planner, Tempo Timesheets, and Tempo Books add-ons for a full agile project and portfolio management JIRA solution.
If you work with teams, then you likely face the challenge of capturing and managing the work efforts of team members, their roles, availabilities, weekly work schedules, and more.
Tempo Folio 8.0 now enables project managers and team leads to compose their folio teams of one or more Tempo teams, which integrates with Tempo roles, and can be reapplied to multiple folios.
This means:
- No more duplicative efforts spent defining teams and their members’ allocations and roles for your folios.
- Once defined, you can re-apply the same teams roles you’ve defined using Tempo Teams.
- You have flexibility of composing a folio’s team by using multiple Tempo Teams as well as extra members that you can add on the fly.
- Your folio team configurations are less prone to error.
Manage Tempo Teams
Those with the Tempo Team Manager permission can define Tempo teams and the composition of those teams that can be applied to one or more Tempo folios, then manage the percentage of their availability to that team in once central place.
To view and manage a Tempo Team within a folio, simply go to the folio’s Team page by clicking on the Team button in the navigation bar located at the top right of the screen, then the Actions(...) button, then Manage Tempo Teams. The Manage Tempo Teams dialog will open. Each team displays a color that is consistent throughout all folios. You can add or delete a Tempo Team by clicking on the blue Add a Tempo Team button.
Tempo Teams will be visually referenced in the folio Team view. Click on the colored bar, which expands with the Tempo Team name when you hover over it. Click the colored bar to take you to the Tempo Teams space to edit.
Tempo Folio offers you the flexibility of team configuration, so you can add Tempo Teams and in addition, individual team members who aren’t part of the Tempo Team. This means that project managers can handle all scenarios themselves without having to create a new Tempo Team every time they add a folio. To use Tempo Teams, you only need permission to Browse them.
Deleted Tempo Teams and members
If a Tempo Team or a member of a Tempo Team that is associated with a folio is deleted, then the folio will remain in tact. You’ll be notified of the Team or individual team member deletion the next time you access your folio.
Then, you can decide whether to delete them from the folio as well or keep them as is by removing the broken link to the Tempo Team.
Centralized cost rates for optimal financial efficiency and organization
In previous Tempo Folio versions, maintaining team member cost rates across folios could become a hassle, especially as the number of folios managed increased; data wasn’t centralized, which made it more prone to error.
Now, you can manage user cost rates by managing individual resources within one centrally located, access-restricted global user cost rate table.
This means:
- No more hassle in keeping team members’ wages across multiple folios. Cost rates are centralized in one place and can be applied as desired to all applicable folios. You decide which ones.
- You have an extra layer of confidentiality regarding salaries by restricting access to user cost rates with a new opt-in permission for viewing and managing cost rates. Unless you’re a super admin, you won’t be able to see them.
- Project managers can still override central cost rates locally within the individual folios that they manage if they want to.
New permissions settings for cost rates data
With new permissions settings, you can manage user access to confidential information. To view and manage global user cost rate information, you’ll need to be a super admin or have permission to the view and manage the global user cost rates table. Go to JIRA Admin->Add-ons->Tempo Folio->Permissions and select the JIRA user group(s) that you would like to have access.
JIRA Admins by default have Super Admin access to view and manage global cost rates in Tempo Folio and view all folio information. However, this can be changed. If JIRA Admins are removed as Super Admins, they cannot view or manage global cost rates unless they are manually granted permission to view and manage global cost rates.
*Note that permissions were previously in the Tempo Folio add-on configuration, but are now located in the global settings. For those who are new to this change, there is a link in the add-on configuration that will get you there.
Create and manage global cost rates table
To create and manage cost rates, go to JIRA Admin->Add-ons->Tempo Folio->Cost Rates. All JIRA users are accessible from this table, and can be filtered by individual user, by team, or by group.
Select Add or Manage Rate for the user, add the currency that applies, the hourly cost rate, the effective date, and click Add. You can add multiple rates with different currencies and effective dates. Quickly add cost rates for multiple team members at once.
If different cost rates apply for the same user on different effective dates, the current cost rate will always apply (indicated with the green arrow displayed below). You can view this in the folio’s Team Members view.
Apply global cost rates for new folios and team members
Those with Super Admin access or view and manage cost rates permission can opt to set the global user cost rates for team members that have been designed in the new Cost Rates table to apply as a default when adding new members to folios.
Go to JIRA Admin->Add-ons->Tempo Folio->Global Settings->Accounting, and check the ‘Use global user rates’ box. Once selected, users’ cost rates will automatically apply to folios from the rates that were added to the centralized cost rate table.
When adding a team member to a folio, the cost rates box in the Create Member dialog will be checked and locked and the default cost rate will apply.
Once global user cost rates are applied to a team member, they are locked in the folio view. You must click the link to the cost rates table to modify the global cost rate, or select the Use User Rates button to opt out of the team member’s global rates and set a new rate for the particular folio instead, as shown below. It will not affect other folio cost rates for this member.
Syncing up different cost rate currencies
If different currencies are used for team member cost rates within the same folio, the default folio currency will apply; all cost rates will be converted to the default currency.
Visibility of cost rates
Users that are not Super Admins and that do not have the view and manage global cost rates table will only be able to view folio information in read-only mode; they will not be able to view cost rate information.
Folio admins can set cost rates for their folios at the folio level. However, they will not be able to view cost rates that are added from the global user cost rates table unless they are a Super Admin or have the view and manage cost rates permission. Cost rates will appear blurred to them and other folio viewers without these permissions for optimal privacy.
Speedier portfolios that scale
Performance enhancements let you load your larger portfolios more quickly.
Portfolio data is now loaded in quasi real-time, allowing these big ones to load much faster! The data of each Folio in a Portfolio is refreshed at most every 24 hours, and you can actualize the whole Portfolio on-demand at any time to get all the latest information available. Portfolio reports always provide you the most up-to-date information.
This means:
- You can actualize portfolio data on demand at any time to get the latest financial updates and make strategic changes as needed.
- Reports on the portfolio level provide you with the most up-to-date information, so you can rest assured that you’re in control of your decision making.
We’re constantly striving to improve Tempo Folio with each release. Please keep your feedback coming so we can make it even better.
Upgrading Tempo Folio is free for all customers with an active license. New customers can purchase or evaluate Tempo Folio for JIRA Server through the Atlassian Marketplace.
