Creating plans in Tempo Planner is a great way for managers to allocate blocks of time to their staff so they can work on an issue. It then becomes easy for these employees to avoid context switching and makes logging time a two-click process.
These plans also have added layers of insights that the whole team can leverage. You can see who’s over or under-worked, who’s working on the field or in the office, who is currently available to help out, etc.
But the best part of planning in Tempo Planner is when you don’t even have to create anything - that is, when plans are created for you automatically!
We’re going to see how you can automate the planning process, and why you’d want to, with two use cases.
Automate Issues into Plans with Auto Plan Time for Tempo (Server)
Let’s take a common scenario in today’s agile development cycle: sprint planning.
During sprint planning, the team and yourself discuss the job to be done during the coming sprint and define a set amount of time for each component. Once that is achieved, you’ll typically create and allocate new issues during the week for a designated stakeholder to work on (ideally creating set blocks of time to maximize productivity).
This is where the problem lies.
A new sprint implies that for every new issue you will need to manually create a plan in Tempo Planner. This is a repetitive task that can easily waste a good amount of time in the long run.
Fret not! The scenario described above is the perfect candidate for automation and the perfect candidate to solve this is “Auto Plan Time for Tempo" from our partner OBSS.
To understand where and how Auto Plan Time will work, let’s recap the scenario with the following diagram:
This is one of the many ways to illustrate a sprint planning. In which a sprint is typically composed of multiple issues. Ideally, issues have a dedicated “block” of time to minimize productivity leaks.
In other words, in this scenario, we typically know of the following variables:
- Stakeholder (who’s doing what)
- Start Date
- End Date
- Estimated time to complete the job
The good news is: it turns out that these are the exact elements required to make Auto Plan Time work!
In just a few steps you can have the tool configured.
- Download the app from the Atlassian Marketplace (there is a free 30-day trial!)
- Configure the settings to your liking in the add-on page (you may need extra permissions)
- Create your new issues and add the aforementioned variables.
You can determine which type of issues this app can work on. Please note that you may need to create a custom field for the Start Date. In our example, we mapped the start date to a date picker (custom field).
If everything works as intended, you’ll be able to see the new information on the issue (under collaborators), in “My Work” (if it’s yours), in the Tempo “planning” view, in Capacity or Plans Reports, etc.
Even if creating plans is extremely fast with Tempo Planner, extra steps are still required when doing things manually. The Auto Plan Time app can automatically do those actions for you to boost your efficiency and save time along the way.
Here’s what Emre Toptanci, OBSS Atlassian Team Lead, had to say about the tool: “When we initially worked on this integration, we knew it would help the client we were working with. Little did we know that this tool could be so impactful to many others.”
Sync Jira portfolio to Tempo Planner automatically
The app was originally designed to sync data between Jira issues and Tempo Planner. It was already possible to use it in conjunction with MS Project integration (you can read more about it in our previous blog with Auto Plan Time). Now it can be used with Jira Portfolio as well.
The best part? It’s extremely simple:
- Create an issue in Jira Portfolio
- Add dates, estimate, and assignee
- Auto Plan Time creates a Tempo plan automatically
After updating the “Start Date” and “End Date” fields to match the custom fields from Jira Portfolio (Target Start and Target end) and updating the “Estimated Effort” to match the estimates field in Portfolio (Remaining Estimate), you’ll be able to automatically sync portfolio plans to Tempo Planner.
Keep in mind, for this to work, you’ll need to have the issue assigned to someone and have an estimated amount of time inserted to complete the task.
Here’s how the process looks:
Another neat potential use case with Jira Portfolio would be wanting to plan directly on the issue with Tempo Planner and having that new information sync with Jira Portfolio.
It is possible to do so by choosing the “Bidirectional” sync direction in the Auto Plan Time Options.
Thanks to the support of Target Start and Target End fields of Jira Portfolio, Auto Plan Time for Tempo can now extend its useability to more use cases.
Saving time, one plan at a time
We’re always striving to make Tempo as seamless and convenient as possible. Which is why we love apps like Auto Plan Time for Tempo! Based on some of the feature requests we’ve read, we firmly believe that Auto Plan Time could help a significant amount of users to save time.
Here’s what Alexander Eck, Tempo Product Expert had to say about the app:
“We’re always on the lookout for partner integrations that would make the lives of our customers easier. OBSS’ Auto Plan Time for Tempo is the perfect example of a tool that does not need to be complicated to save time. The app is very easy to set up and it is configured within a minute! And... it simply works!"
Give Tempo Planner and Auto Plan Time a try, you can trial both apps for free on the Atlassian Marketplace.
