How Timesheets helped HomeAway’s Jira workplace thrive

Michael Kuhl is a senior manager of IT operations at HomeAway.com, now known as VRBO. The Texas-based company, with over 20 offices spread around the world, is one of the world’s leading online marketplaces in the vacation rental industry with over one million listings in over 190 countries.

Kuhl was using Jira manage his team’s workflows and enhance collaboration from the service desk to the product development team and then on to marketing.

However, as his teams adopted Jira and began to utilize its work logging capabilities, they soon realized they needed more sophisticated capabilities to manage, forecast, and report on their time. In 2013, they discovered Timesheets by Tempo and instantly realized the value of the greater visibility and control that comes with its automated work-logging, insights, and data collection tools.

The search for better ways of working

The successful implementation of Jira and Jira Agile among many teams at HomeAway led to their biggest adoption challenges. It was not an easy process as it meant shifting away from older ways of working as the product development team had been using Rally Software for agile project management.

One of the limitations the team and Kuhl noted of that product at the time was a lack of built-in management tools for work logging and accounting.

This weakness resulted in a number of automated and manual frameworks built up around the tool in order to ensure the accuracy of work logging in general and proper attribution to specific development initiatives, in particular. While this framework was effective in maintaining appropriate controls, it was awkward, time consuming, and generally unpopular.

How Timesheets helped

After struggling with their old tool, Kuhl and the team decided they needed to try something different. Their search didn’t have to go far as they looked straight to the #1 tool for time-tracking in Jira: Timesheets by Tempo.

Kuhl said: “If you want to make work logging for your team virtually friction-free and really feel like you have the insight into that logging, along with the capability to effectively manage the process, you should take a serious look at Timesheets.”

One of the key selling points for adopting Jira, Jira Agile, and Timesheets was the built in features for managing and controlling work logging and project accounting. With Timesheets, Kuhl said the team’s development management team and accounting teams could easily coordinate work logging periods, account lifespans, and the exceptionally easy auditing of worklogs.

Kuhl added: “Reviewing, approving, and closing time reporting periods went from days to hours and a lot of custom code and manual procedures were gladly retired.”

He told us that, for the teams at HomeAway, work logging, managing time, and reporting went from being a rather painful process to a natural part of our development and accounting process. Developers can now log time as they work in a Jira issue, and, with a few keystrokes using keyboard shortcuts, they can turn on the real-time time tracker and let it do the tracking work, or update their worklogs daily or weekly using timesheet view.

It’s up to each developer’s style and preference. With the reliable reporting and controls built into Timesheets, team members have the freedom to log their time the way that works for them, knowing that the numbers are reliable and auditable by using the built-in Timesheets controls.

Accounting team members can manage project accounts and time periods independently with the confidence of knowing that when they close a period or a project account, it is closed.

Kuhl told us that since the team adopted Timesheets, there’s no longer a need to send out an email notifying people to stop logging their work and then double-checking that using scripts and reports. The accounting team can move on to reporting that time and bringing it into their accounting applications, saving valuable time for both teams.

The difference a single tool can make

In the past, development managers were the time-logging police at HomeAway. They had to make sure that accounts were set correctly, that all time was entered, etc. Now, they have team timesheets that they can review at any time, knowing in real-time where their team stands. Instead of nagging, they simply let Tempo remind their team that the period will be closing soon.

Kuhl said: “With Tempo Timesheets’ strong permissions scheme, my team can confidently delegate the account, team, and reporting period management to the people who own those roles in the business, rather than having to make every change on their behalf.

“This lets us focus on innovating, with teams across HomeAway using Jira to make them more effective, get their work done faster, and go home sooner.”

He added: “If you want to make work logging for your team virtually friction-free and really feel like you have the insight into that logging, along with the capability to effectively manage the process, you should take a serious look at Timesheets.”

“For us, Timesheets by Tempo makes Jira even more powerful as a process management tool than Jira alone.”