ActivityTimeline – a Single Source of Truth for Remote Teams

A Single Source of Truth is always needed but because of the pandemic circumstances, remote businesses need to rely on this single point even more than it was previously. The reasons are clear:

• A need for the transparent work environment
• A coherent picture of the ongoing processes
• Ability to see  progress in real-time as well as a possibility to build future plans and strategies

What is a Single Source of Truth?

Single Source of Truth is particularly important high-quality data, in organizations because it helps to eliminate data inconsistencies, reduces errors, and ensures that decision-makers have access to accurate and reliable information. It also promotes data governance and can streamline data-related processes by preventing the proliferation of multiple versions of the same information or data. This concept is often applied in areas such as master data management, where critical data elements like customer information, product data, or financial figures need to be consistent and accurate across various systems and departments.

Regular meetings are enough?

Meetings themselves are typically not considered a Single Source of Truth (SSOT) in the traditional sense because they are more of a communication and collaboration mechanism rather than a data repository. However, meetings can play a role in establishing and disseminating multiple sources of information that contributes to the Single Source of Truth.

Frankly speaking, they not only resolve some challenges but create even more of them.

After a couple of productive meetings, team members feel that they know what exactly to do, but after some time people realize that discussion results are not clear and tasks are not distributed, so they are confused, and need more consultations which leads to new individual and group meetings. All of this takes precious time and undesirable delays.

How to Make a Single Source of Truth?

A resource capacity planning tool serves as a Single Source of Truth (SSOT) for organizations by using multiple data sources and providing a centralized, accurate, and authoritative central repository of resource-related information. This type of tool ensures that relevant data pertaining to resource availability, allocation, and utilization is consistently maintained and up-to-date. By eliminating discrepancies and conflicts in resource management, it becomes the trusted reference point for all stakeholders within the organization.

Through regular maintenance and integration a robust resource capacity planning tool ensures that resource-related data remains accurate and aligned across various departments and projects. This centralized approach enhances decision-making by offering a comprehensive view of resource capacity, enabling organizations to optimize resource allocation and avoid overbooking or underutilization. In essence, the tool’s accuracy, consistency, authority, and accessibility make it an indispensable asset for effective resource management and planning, aligning it with the principles of a Single Source of Truth.

Creating a reliable source of information is highly needed and we can suggest a solution that will help to build long-term plans, distribute work to your teams, and keep your tasks updated.

ActivityTimeline – issues in the palm of your hand

ActivityTimeline is a resource planning add–on for Jira that focuses attention on people, not on tasks, but at the same time helps to organize, gather, and structure issues in the same place, provides a transparent vision of all tasks and projects, as well as shows resources and their ongoing or planned activities. It’s a Single Source of Truth in resource planning.

Due to the aforementioned features, this app will become a reliable source of truth for the whole company and will show a clear picture of the company knowledge who is doing what and for how long.

Functionality is wide and offers numerous practical features and tools for efficient planning and tracking:

1. Planning Dashboard

It is the main storage of tasks, which shows current Jira projects/ issues and allows the creation of new ones. Distant teams see the files of ongoing activities and plans, but this access can be configured according to various user permissions. The application is a planning tool, that facilitates managers in scheduling and assigning tasks, in the tracking of issues’ and teams’ progress.

2. Cross-project view

A cross-project view for shared resources eases life as it facilitates resource/capacity planning activities. Users receive transparent visualization and see who is responsible for specific tasks. That’s quite important for remote teams and provides a single source of information which helps not to have misunderstandings in the various future projects, as everything is visible.

3. Position & Skills

In a distant collaboration, it’s ( quite like during the in-office work) quite complicated to find the right person to complete some task, for example, but the plugin provides User positions and even Custom skills for your convenience. As for now, searching for resources is not such a headache and is more efficient.

4. Personal Workspace for employees

We noted that due to current “home working” we struggle to divide working and relaxing hours. With the help of ActivityTimeline, managers and team members can track their workload and worklog. In such a way, they will be able to avoid over- or underload. It is visible on the Main Dashboard or in the Personal cabinet, which provides users with their own tasks, and time spent on them and allows logging time.

5. Split task between multiple users

Sometimes tasks are too complicated for one person so many companies prefer to share the same task between several people and in such a way they keep up to date information with ease employee’s work and task completion takes much less time.

The Multi Assign feature is very facilitating but Jira lacks it, so we implemented this highly–demand feature into the app. Divide issues among multiple users and days without effort.

6. Integration with external calendars

Enjoy integration with Google, Outlook, and Apple 

Custom events – no more headaches with vacations 

This feature applies not only to vacations but to other repeatedly occurring  situations:

• Bookings – allow to reserve person for certain numbers of hours per day without specifying exact Jira tasks
• Vacations / Sick leaves – see who is not available and do not count on them
• Day offs – can be a full day or partial
• Holiday – create custom holidays for the desired teams or individuals
• Placeholder – used for trying different planning scenarios without actually changing Jira issues. Approving the Placeholder creates an actual Jira task
• Leave Notes, Text tasks, and Goals for personal without affecting the user’s capacity.
• Create your own custom events for greater comfort e.g.: online meetings or conferences, etc.

In current conditions, custom events are helping organizations to make business decisions, manage resources in the best possible way and combine from different data sources like Tempo or Advanced Roadmaps.

Timesheets and Reporting – get evidence of transparent workflow 

First of all, tracking hours spent on specific tasks is always necessary and in a case when multiple teams’ are dispersed it is a must to log time in order to understand the workload. App gives an organization the opportunity to approve or disapprove timesheets and create Detail Team Timesheets on specific projects.

The Reporting section offers a great variety of reports, including the most popular ones :

• Planned vs Actual report
• Detailed Worklog report
• Resource Workload report and others

ActivityTimeline is a great Single Source of Truth for the whole company. It provides a big picture of the workflow, transparent control, and task sharing system. Moreover, high-level customization allows to configure the application according to your specific business needs at any time.

Be on the same level of understanding as your colleagues in order to move in the same direction, despite the distance.

Keep closer to your teams with ActivityTimeline.

If you are experiencing issues with the management process of remote teams you may check some helpful tips and knowledge about remote collaboration.