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Settings
To integrate with Tempo, it is necessary to set up the Tempo Integration Settings table, where you will have to enter the integration keys and URLs that will allow Jira and Tempo to connect to Business Central.
To ensure that the integration works properly, you must set up the project journal templates, the resource setup and the corresponding number series.
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General RecommendationsTo simplify the entire setup process, we recommend using our Tempo Integration Setup Wizard, which can be found in the Assisted Setup section accessible through the search bar. Once all the connection credentials are filled in, our wizard assistant will test if the connection is established correctly and if you have all the required permissions. Complete documentation for the Tempo Integration assisted setup can be found under this link. Since the integration requires only one Jira account and one user to connect to, we recommend that the person responsible for setting up the integration be a technical user or an administrator, ideally with access to all projects, issues and worklogs. In addition to the wizard, you can also use the tooltips, which provide an example of what the system expects you to enter. Before you start installing the integration, make sure that all users who will use the integration have the permissions to these tables: |
Object Type | Object ID | Object Name |
Table Data | 156 | Resource |
Table Data | 169 | Job Ledger Entry |
Table Data | 203 | Res. Ledger Entry |
Table Data | 205 | Resource Unit of Measure |
Table Data | 210 | Job Journal Line |
Table Data | 237 | Job Journal Batch |
Table Data | 240 | Resource Register |
Table Data | 241 | Job Register |
Table Data | 71231910 | Jira Project Key ONP |
Table Data | 71231911 | Tempo Settings ONP |
Table Data | 71231912 | Tempo Worklog Archive ONP |
Table Data | 71231913 | Worklog Period ONP |
Tempo Integration Settings
The integration settings can be found by typing Tempo Integration Settings in the search bar. The settings are divided into several sections.
API Section
This section is already pre-populated with the credentials that you entered into the wizard when setting up the integration. You can skip it and move on to the next section.
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Job Queue Section
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The following settings can be customized according to the customer's needs:
Download Updated From
When downloading your worklogs automatically using job queue, this field is automatically populated with the date and time of the last successful job queue start and this value does not need to be further adjusted.
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For more information about automatic and manual downloading of worklogs, see the corresponding documentation section.
Next Period Starts
Since worklogs are typically approved and closed at the end of the month, this field allows you to set a specific day of the month until which the previous month's period will remain open, so you can adjust the period length according to your company needs.
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Using the example in the screenshot above, the February worklogs can be downloaded until March 5th, but if the system downloads the worklogs after that date, only the March records will be downloaded to your Business Central.
Automatically Load For All Project Tasks
If enabled, all worklogs for all tasks in the project are automatically downloaded when the job queue is started.
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On the other hand, if this field is enabled in the settings, the user will not see the option to select whether or not to automatically download the worklogs for a particular task on project cards. |
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Project Journal Creation Section
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Project Journal Template
You can define exactly one template for the project journal. See the project journal template settings section for more information.
Project Journal Editable
When this button is enabled, it indicates that all users will be able to edit project journal lines without restriction.
Project Journal Editable for Project Manager
When enabled, this button specifies that only users who are set as the project managers on the project card can edit project journal lines.
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If neither of the options for editing project lines is enabled, users will still be able to delete entire lines or update resource prices in the journals using the action Update Amounts available in the Home tab. |
Automatically Create Resources
This toggle specifies if the resources that do not exist in Business Central should be automatically created when worklogs are downloaded.
Resource Default Unit of Measure
The default unit of measure for creating a resource. This value should always be set to Hour as our integration only works with hourly rates.
Resource Default Gen. Product Posting Group
The default general product posting group for creating a resource. This value can be set to any posting group according to your system needs, e.g. Resource.
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If the default unit of measure and general product posting group are set, these values are also filled in when a new resource card is created manually. |
Merge worklogs when posting
To make the entries that are created by posting worklogs in project journals more clear, it is possible to reduce the number of project or resource entries or project planning lines by merging them.
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Do not merge - When entering worklogs into the system, each line of the project journal will correspond to to exactly one project entry after it's posted.
Merge by resources - When this rule is applied, the posted project journal lines are merged according to each resource loaded into the project journal.
Merge to one G/L account - When this rule is applied, the posted project journal lines are merged into a selected financial account.
Deafult Values for Manual Download
This setting specifies the default settings for the fields on the Load Tempo Worklogs page, which can be used for manual downloading of worklogs. For more information on manual downloading, see this section of the documentation.
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Include Not Automatically LoadedThis toggle button can only be enabled if the Automatically Load for All Project Tasks button in the Job Queue section is not enabled (if it is, this toggle button is enabled automatically as well). This way you can be sure that the worklogs for all tasks in the given project are actually downloaded, even if you download them manually. |
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Project Journal Posting Checks Section
The last section of settings allows you to customize which parameters of your worklogs should be checked when posting them in the project journal.
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Check Worklog Status
Checks if the worklog status is set to approved when posting project journal lines.
Check Unit Cost
Checks if the unit cost is other than 0 when posting project journal lines.
Check Unit Price
Checks if the unit price is other than 0 when posting project journal lines.
Check Different Doc. No.
Checks if the document number of all lines is the same when posting project journal lines. The document number series is defined in the format YYYYMM.
Check Doc. No. Posted
Checks for duplicate postings by document and project number in project entries when posting project journal lines.
Project Journal Template Settings
For correct functionality, it is necessary to set up a project journal template and enter it in the corresponding field in the Tempo Integration Settings table.
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If there are multiple projects with identical values in the first 10 positions of their name, the journal batches are created with a numeric suffix and the full project name is automatically copied into the description field of the journal batch. |
Resources Setup
If your resources in Business Central will be created manually, you need to assign a number series for the Resource Numbers field in the Resources Setup table.
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If the resources in Business Central will be created only through the integration with Tempo, it is not necessary to set up a manual number series for your resources and assign this number series in the Resources Setup table.
Project Card Settings
On the card of each project for which you want to download worklogs, you should always fill in the following fields in the project header section.
Jira Project Keys
Corresponds to the Project Key field in Jira, it is possible to fill in any number of project keys.
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And additionally, in the tasks of each project it is necessary to fill in the following fields.
Tempo Account
Corresponds to the Tempo Account key, which can be found either in the given project details in Jira or in Tempo under the Accounts tab.
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Note that this value must be filled in exactly according to the value in Tempo, therefore including the distinction between upper and lower case letters. Without following this rule, the system will not be able to download your worklogs correctly. When creating new accounts in Tempo, we recommend not to use @, & and # characters for Account Name and Account Key fields, which are supported by our side, but due to Jira's features it can take more time to search and download worklogs. |
Project Journal Line Type
The Project Journal Line Type determines whether the data created at posting will be only budget-related (cost side), billing-related (sales side) or if both sides of the process will be created at once.
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The system prevents the creation of duplicate records in Business Central by not allowing the same Jira Project Key and Tempo Account to be assigned to multiple project cards. However, the system allows you to assign identical Tempo Accounts to different Jira Project Keys. |
Totalling Group
We added this field to the Project Tasks to allow users to summarize cost and sales entries by different Tempo Accounts. In case they need to make additional analysis, lines with the same totalling group will be summarized in reports.
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A great example of using the Totalling Group field is to set it as a basic summary filter in Power BI reports if you want to monitor some Tempo Accounts as a single unit. We developed a comprehensive Power BI report specifically for the needs of our integration. You can get it for free if you choose the corresponding subscription. |
Worklogs Merging
Optionally, on each project's card, you can specify whether worklogs should be merged according to pre-defined rules when they are posted.
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If no merging option is selected on the project card, the system follows the default rule defined in Tempo Integration Settings. |
Resource Card Settings
Resources Created Manually
If the resources are created manually, you need to fill in the fields:
No. - Unique resource ID in Business Central. In this case, it should be filled in with the resource name as mentioned in the corresponding section of the documentation.
Jira Resource Name - Corresponds to the resource name in Jira.
Jira Account ID - Unique resource ID in Jira.
Base Unit of Measure - This value should always be set to Hour as our integration only works with hourly rates.
Gen. Product Posting Group - This value can be set to any posting group according to your system needs, e.g. Resource.
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If you create a resource in Business Central with a unique name that already exists in both Business Central and Jira (resource number in Business Central and name in Jira)Jira under the same name, the system will recognizes it and automatically add adds the Jira Resource Name resource name and Jira Account ID even when manually creating the resource (, but the diacritics must be preserved). Just fill in the Resource No. and then click in the line for the Jira Resource Name, the rest of the information above will be filled in for you. |
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If there are multiple resources with the same name, the system will not be able to automatically assign the Jira Resource Name and Jira Account ID. If a resource exists in Business Central but does not have a Jira Account ID entered, the system will not recognize it and will create a new resource with a numeric suffix. Similarly, resources with the same Jira Resource Name will be created. |
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Resources Created Automatically
If the resources are created automatically when downloading the worklogs from Tempo, you don’t need to fill in any of the fields above, the system will fill them in for you.
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The Resource No. in this case corresponds to the resource name in Jira. Both, Base Unit of Measure and General Product Posting Group fields have to be set up in the Tempo Integration Settings, as mentioned in the corresponding section of the documentation. |
Price of the Resource
The fields on the resource card related to the resource price should always be filled in.
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The sales unit price of a resource for a specific project has a higher priority than the unit price of the resource on the resource card. |
Job Queue Entry Settings
To download worklogs automatically, our integration uses the Job Queue Entry feature. It is recommended that you set the download to run every day during the night hours. The job queue will always download all new and updated worklogs. This ensures that the data in Business Central is always up to date and also ensures data consistency between the ERP and Tempo.
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If you want to be notified in case your job queue stops running for any reason, we recommend that you install the Job Queue Notifications extension. For more details, see our Marketplace offer. |
User Permissions Settings
Once you assign purchased licenses to selected users in your Microsoft 365 Admin Center (via Billing and Licenses), there is no need to assign or check any specific permissions in Business Central. The full functionality of Tempo Integration will make itself available to users with assigned licenses.
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Before you start using the integration, it is recommended that you check that these users have the correct permissions to work with the entities that the integration works with. For example, if your user doesn't have the right to create resources, they won't be able to download worklogs because downloading worklogs also creates new resources. |
Automated Download
Automatic download of worklogs is ensured by the corresponding job queue entry. See the relevant part of the documentation for more details.
The download of worklogs also depends on the settings of the Tempo Integration Settings table, specifically the Job Queue section, where it is possible to limit e.g. the period for which worklogs should be downloaded and also whether all worklogs should be downloaded for all tasks of the project. For more information see this section of the documentation.
Viewing Downloaded Worklogs
All downloaded worklogs are displayed to the user in the corresponding Project Journal. The Project Journal can be opened directly from the Project Card in Tasks using the Project drop-down menu and Open Project Journal action.
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The posting date filter is linked to the date you set in the Job Queue section in the Tempo Integration settings as the Next Period Starts date. If the Business Central work date has already exceeded the start date of the next period, then the posting date filter in the project journal displays only current month. If the work date has not yet exceeded the next period start date, the posting date filter in the project journal is set to the previous month. Model situation:
Posting Date filter in the corresponding project journal is set to 011023..311023. If the work date was for example 6/11/2023, the posting date filter would be se to 011123..061123. |
Project Journal
The project journal contains detailed information about each downloaded worklog. One line of the project journal corresponds to one downloaded worklog.
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Other optional fields are dimensions which are inherited from the project card.
Entering lines from the project journal into the system
Ideally, worklogs should be entered into the system on a monthly basis for a full previous month after the approval process has been completed in Tempo.
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The accounting function in the project journals is only used to record worklogs in the system, no general ledger entries are created during line posting that would affect the entry in the general ledgers. |
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Rules for merging worklogs during posting
If you have defined one of the rules for merging worklogs during posting when setting up the integration, either in the Tempo Integration Settings or directly on the individual project cards, you will find a detailed description of how each of the three rules works below.
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For more information on general Tempo Integration settings or Project Card settings, see the corresponding sections of the documentation.
Merge by Resources
When this rule is applied, the posted project journal lines are merged according to each resource loaded into the project journal. The user will be prompted to enter the posting date.
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In the screenshot below, you can see the merged worklogs in the project ledger entries after the project journal is posted.
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Merge to one G/L Account
When this rule is applied, the posted project journal lines are merged into a selected G/L account. The user will be prompted to enter a posting date and a financial account.
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If you need to split the worklogs into multiple G/L accounts, you can use filters in the project journal and post the filtered worklogs gradually. |
Do not merge
When applying this rule, the lines of the project journal are not merged after posting, and one line of the project journal will correspond to exactly one project entry.
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In the screenshot below, you can see the corresponding project ledger entries created after the project journal is posted.
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Tempo Worklog Archive
If you use our merging functionality, the project ledger entries created after the worklogs are posted will only display in merged form.
The original, unmerged entries are recorded in the Tempo Worklog Archive, which can be accessed via the search magnifying glass. This archive can be used for auditing purposes or to track changes in records, for example, in case of additional downloading of worklogs.
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Line ID
The best way to access the merged lines is by using the click-through value in the Line ID column, available directly in the project ledger entries. Once you click on it, all corresponding lines in the Tempo worklog archive are displayed.
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If you decide not to merge the worklogs, you can find all the information you need directly in the project ledger entries. In this case the value in the Line ID column will be 0 and it won’t be possible to use it to access the archive. |
Posting Checks in Project Journal
The following checks can take place before the worklogs in the project journal are entered into the system using the Post action. The user is always alerted about the information they should focus on, and can then decide if they want to post the journal lines despite the alert. Therefore, all warnings below are non-blocking.
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The checks that the system performs before posting can be specified in the Integration Tempo Settings. |
Worklogs status check
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The worklog is not in the Approved status, which means that the approval process in Tempo has not been completed. |
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Unit cost and unit price check
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The cost or unit price of the resource is 0 for the given journal line. |
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Different document numbers check
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The posted lines of the project journal have a different document number. Since the document number is always created automatically according to the month and year for which the worklogs are currently being downloaded, this check alerts the user that they are about to post worklogs from two or more different months. |
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Posted document number check
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This check keeps track of duplicate postings. It will alert you if it detects that a line with the same document and project number has already been posted in the past. |
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If the downloaded project journal line type is empty, the following message is displayed, indicating that after the project journal line is posted, no project planning lines will be created, instead the project and resource ledger entries will be posted directly. Specific use cases for each type of project journal line are described in this part of the documentation. |
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Viewing data for posted worklogs
After posting/entering the project journal lines into the system, the costs associated with the resource will be displayed on the given project card, in the Tasks section, in the Actual (Total Cost) column.
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If you want to see all entries for the entire project and all its tasks, you can go to the Project tab on the given project card and select the Ledger Entries action.
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Project Ledger Entries Cancellation
If some worklogs (project journal lines) have been entered into the system incorrectly, it is possible to cancel them by reverse entry (cancellation) through the journal of the respective project. This can be done by using the Reverse function in the project ledger entries.
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The posting of the cancelled line is reflected on the project card in the tasks in the Actual (Total Cost) column by lowering the initial value. |
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Manual Download
It is possible that while using this integration, you may need to download some of the worklogs in one-time session outside of the preconfigured job queue entry that provides automatic downloads. This might occur especially after additional changes to the worklogs in Tempo, after they have already been automatically downloaded.
Bulk Manual Download
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Bulk manual download of worklogs can be done from the Tempo Integration Settings table through the drop-down Actions and selecting Run Job Queue Function. When you run the function, all updated worklogs according to the selected parameters are downloaded to the corresponding project journals. |
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The download of worklogs also depends on the settings of the Tempo Integration Settings table, specifically the Job Queue section, where it is possible to limit e.g. the period for which worklogs should be downloaded and also whether all worklogs should be downloaded for all tasks of the project. For more information see the Tempo Integration Settings section of this documentation.
Manual download
Worklogs can be manually downloaded directly on the project card from the Tasks section. Go to the Line tab, select the Project drop-down menu and click Load Tempo Worklogs.
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