Tempo time tracking guide (how to use, 7 alternatives)

Tempo is a suite of applications, available on the Atlassian Marketplace, that enables teams to complete projects on time and handle finances efficiently.

Tempo tools can help you with resource planning, project road mapping, and program management.

More importantly, it also offers time tracking functionality. In addition to logging work hours, this feature helps you create insightful data for accurate invoicing and easy accounting.

But can the Tempo time tracker improve team productivity?

In this article, we’ll discuss what Tempo time tracking is, how it works, and its four limitations. We’ll also highlight its seven best alternatives.

What is Tempo time tracking?
- How to track time with Tempo?

4 key limitations of tracking time with Tempo

7 best alternatives to Tempo time tracking

1. Time Doctor

Let’s get started.

What is Tempo time tracking?

The Tempo suite consists of Tempo Planner, Tempo Budgets, Cost Tracker for Tempo Timesheets, and Tempo Timesheets. It’s a part of Atlassian, a cloud platform that has also developed Jira (an issue tracking tool for agile project management).

Tempo Timesheet integrates with Jira Cloud API and tracks the time taken to solve an issue in Jira software.

You can easily download the tool and install it in any Jira environment – Jira Cloud, Jira Server, or Jira Data Center.

Here are some of the main Tempo Timesheets features:

Shows automated suggestions to fill in a timesheet quickly in your Tempo account.
Offers calendar integrations with Microsoft and Google Calendar for easy time tracking.
Helps with finance management by measuring and reporting on CapEx (Capital Expenditure) and OpEx (Operational Expenditure).
Lets you build custom reports for R&D (Research & Development) tax refunds and other support operational requirements.

But how do you use the Tempo app for time tracking?

Tempo lets you track time from My Work Calendar (i.e., the home base of Tempo Timesheets), Timesheet View, and Time Form pages. You can also log work hours directly from the Jira issue you’re working on.

From the My Work Calendar view, you can get an overview of your agenda and timesheet progress. Here you can log time for any work plans or external calendar events.

However, it’s more convenient to track work hours from the Jira issue when you’re working from the Jira software.

Let’s see how you can track time from a Jira issue with Tempo.

How to track time with Tempo?

Tempo Timesheet offers a time tracker – a manual stopwatch that can record the time spent on any Jira issue.

Here’s how you can use the tracker:

A. Add a tracker in the Jira issue

Step 1: Open the Jira issue you want to track time for.

Step 2: Click Open Tempo on the right-hand side to expand the Tempo side panel.

Step 3: Select Add at the bottom of the side panel (adjacent to Trackers). For further clarity, enter a description for the tracker to differentiate it from other trackers.

After this, you can either track time directly from the issue or add the tracker to the Jira dashboard. If you opt for the second option, you can conveniently track time for multiple issues separately from the dashboard.

B. Add a tracker to the Jira dashboard

Step 1: Open your Jira dashboard.

Step 2: Select Add Gadget and type ‘Tempo trackers’ into the search box.

Step 3: Click on Add Gadget next to the Tempo Tracker gadget item.

Step 4: Select Close.

Now, you can view and access all your existing trackers on the dashboard.

C. Use the tracker

Step 1: Click on the Play button to start tracking time for any Jira issue.

Step 2: Click on the Pause button to stop the tracker once you’re done with the task.

Step 3: After recording the time for an issue, click on ✅ and open the Log Time Form. All information, including the Time spent, Start time, and End time, are filled in automatically.

Step 4: Select Submit to save the time entry in the Tempo Timesheets Worklog.

You can delete a tracker from the Jira issue view by hovering on the tracker and clicking on the right-hand side and then selecting X.

Besides time tracking, here are some other useful features of Tempo for :

Prevents external members from accessing Jira projects, Jira issues, and Tempo Timesheets data until you give permission via Projects Permission.
Safeguards a plan or worklog from employees with Team Lead Role Permissions.
Allows you to oversee plans and resources from the same view.
Offers a detailed knowledge base via Confluence (a tool that helps teams share information) in the Atlassian ecosystem.

Despite these advanced project management features, Tempo time tracking has several drawbacks.

4 key limitations of tracking time with Tempo

Here are some drawbacks of Tempo time tracking:

Lacks the feature to check employee idle time.
The mobile app doesn’t allow the user to add working hours directly.
Doesn’t let you schedule work shifts for employees.
Doesn’t offer advanced employee productivity reports like web and app usage report, activity summary report, etc.

After this Tempo Timesheets review, let’s explore its best alternatives to help you manage time better.

7 best alternatives to Tempo time tracking

Here are the seven best time tracking tools that you can use instead of Tempo Timesheets:

1. Time Doctor

Time Doctor is a workforce analytics platform that empowers managers with the visibility to lead with trust, not control. Mid-market companies and growing SMBs use it to gain real-time visibility into work, support employee well-being, and continuously improve productivity across remote, hybrid, and in-office teams.

Time Doctor integrates with Jira and allows you to track time from Jira issues for a seamless workflow. With this integration, you can also track time, view employee activity, and get detailed reports for any date range.

How to track time in Jira with Time Doctor integration

Step 1: Download and install Time Doctor’s desktop app. The tool’s app is available for Windows, Mac, and Linux.

Step 2: Download Time Doctor Chrome Extension and add it to your browser.

Step 3: Log into your Jira account.

Step 4: Click on Start Timer at the user interface of the Jira issue to begin tracking time.

Step 5: Hit Stop Timer on the Jira issue interface to stop tracking time.

It’s that easy!

In addition to this, Time Doctor offers other robust features to increase employee productivity.

Key features

Here are some of Time Doctor’s handy features:

A. Time tracking

Time Doctor is a workforce analytics platform that gives you flexible time tracking so employees can record their hours in a way that fits how they work. The platform captures work activity in real time and transforms it into clear visibility for teams, helping leaders understand how work happens while keeping the experience simple for employees.

In manual/interactive mode, employees simply open the app, select their current task, and start the timer. Time Doctor runs in the background and tracks the apps and websites used during work. When they’re finished or want to take a break, they can stop the timer with a single click.

In automatic mode, Time Doctor can start tracking time when employees turn on or log into their work devices. This mode helps improve accuracy and reduces the need for manual edits or forgotten time entries.

Both modes are designed to provide clear visibility for managers and employees while minimizing disruption to the workday.

B. Idle time tracking

Time Doctor measures idle time (periods without keyboard or mouse activity) to help teams understand focus patterns and potential productivity blockers.

Idle time is measured in idle seconds and idle minutes
You can configure when idle time should start counting and set limits that make sense for different roles

Instead of silently recording behavior, Time Doctor can display a gentle idle time pop-up when someone has been inactive for too long—nudging them to either refocus or take a break. This helps reduce unintentional time drift and supports more accurate timesheets.

This design helps organizations balance accountability with privacy and trust.Moreover, you can set how long the timer can run without any activity. Once it reaches the limit, the tracker auto

Note: Time Doctor isn’t a keylogger. It only detects mouse movements and keystrokes but doesn’t record them.

C. Screencasts (Optional)

Time Doctor offers a screen monitoring feature with which you can click screenshots of employees’ monitors at regular intervals (3 minutes/15 minutes/30 minutes). With this feature, you can see if they’re working and spot unproductive activities.

Note: Admins and managers can blur screencasts of an employee or a group of employees to protect their privacy.

D. Shifts and schedules

Managers can use Time Doctor’s Work Schedules feature to create and edit employee shifts.

Here’s what you can do with schedules:

Save time by automating schedule creation and updates.
Easily adjust schedules to ensure round-the-clock availability.
Monitor and manage employee overtime.

E. Productivity reports

Time Doctor tracks several data points related to employees activity. You can access a wide range of reports generated in real-time.

Here’s a quick look at these reports :

Activity summary report: See active seconds, minutes, unproductive, manual, and mobile time for each employee over a selected time period.
Attendance report: See if an employee is present, absent, partially absent, or late in real-time.
Hours tracked report: View the total number of hours tracked by employees for any date range.
Projects & tasks report: See the time spent on projects as well as individual tasks.
Timeline report: Look at the time spent on tasks and breaks in a day or the whole week.
Custom export report: Customize the fields you’d like to include in one single report.
Web and app usage report: View the time spent by an employee on each app and website during work hours.

F. Payroll management

Time Doctor’s payroll feature helps you pay employees accurately based on payment methods, pay period, payment currencies, and payment rates.

You can directly pay employees via popular payment gateways like Gusto, ADP, Paypal, and Wise.

G. Chrome extension and integrations

Time Doctor’s powerful Chrome Extension integrates with 60+ tools that include project management, helpdesk, accounting software, and more.

For example, Time Doctor integrates easily with tools like Asana and Jira.

You can even add time tracking to tasks you’ve created on tools like ClickUp. As a result, you can help your team avoid wasting time and work more efficiently.

H. Benchmark AI

Benchmarks AI helps you understand your team’s performance by comparing their work patterns to similar roles and workflows across Time Doctor’s extensive behavior-based dataset.

See how your team’s productivity, idle time, and tool usage compare to similar users across thousands of organizations.
Identify whether shifts in productive time reflect healthy focus, rising workload pressure, or early signs of burnout.
Spot unusual activity and changes in behavior before they affect performance or well-being.
Give managers clearer context during coaching by showing where teams fall across percentile rankings and behavior groups.
Make smarter decisions on resourcing, planning, and workload balancing using AI-matched comparisons instead of generic industry averages.

I. Meeting insight

Meeting Insights helps you understand how meetings affect productivity, focus time, and engagement across your team.

See total meeting hours, number of meetings, and which teams spend the highest or lowest percentage of their time in meetings.
Measure meeting quality by tracking average duration, idle minutes per meeting, and idle time during meetings versus regular work hours.
Identify low-value or ineffective meetings by spotting high idle time or unrelated app usage during calls.
Compare meeting habits across groups to find overload, spot bottlenecks, or highlight teams that collaborate effectively.
Decide which meetings to shorten, restructure, or move async using data instead of assumptions.
Protect focus hours by understanding how recurring calls impact productive time and daily workflow.
Support coaching and policy decisions with clear insights into meeting load, engagement patterns, and collaboration trends.

Pricing

Time Doctor offers a 14-day free trial plan (no credit card required). Its paid plans start at $6.70/user per month.

Customer ratings

G2: 4.4/5 (420+ reviews)
Capterra: 4.5/5 (540+ reviews)

2. Hubstaff

Hubstaff provides time tracking for distributed, hybrid, and field teams, with productivity metrics, GPS-based location features, and payroll capabilities.