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What happens to your worklogs when you leave Tempo Timesheets (Jira Cloud)

By Kayabyte · Updated 4 November 2026

Short answer: On Jira Cloud, the worklogs stay in Jira when you uninstall Tempo, but Tempo’s help page says their author and description are set to “Tempo Timesheet”. The real names, accounts, work attributes and billable hours live in Tempo’s own data, which Tempo keeps for about 90 days after uninstall (Financial Manager data for a year). Export everything with the Raw Data report or the Tempo REST API before you uninstall. This page is about Cloud; Data Center behaves differently.

Disclosure: I make Burnrate, a cost and budget app that reads Jira worklogs. It’s not a timesheet, so it doesn’t replace most of what Tempo Timesheets does. This guide applies whichever app you move to. Tempo facts come from its help pages, checked on 4 Nov 2026; check them again before you act, because they can change.

Why it works this way

On Cloud, Tempo keeps each worklog in its own database and writes a copy to Jira using its app account. That has three effects people usually notice late:

So the question when leaving isn’t whether the hours survive. They do. It’s whether you can still tell who logged them and how they were classified.

What Tempo says happens on uninstall

From Tempo’s page What happens with my data if I uninstall Tempo:

After uninstall on Cloud
Worklogs in Jira Remain available
Author and description in Jira Set to “Tempo Timesheet”
Tempo data Moved to an archive about 30 days after uninstall, then kept for a further 60 days (about 90 in total)
Financial Manager data Kept for 1 year
Reinstall within that window Tempo says your data is restored to its original state
After that You start with an empty database

A checklist for leaving

  1. List what depends on Tempo. Reports, invoices, payroll exports, dashboards and anything using the Tempo API. Ask finance too, since they often hold the oldest dependency.
  2. Agree a cut-off date. Pick the first day of a month or a billing period, so that no period is half in each system.
  3. Export while Tempo is still installed. Use the Raw Data report or the Tempo REST API. Keep the worklog ID, Jira issue ID, author account ID, date, seconds, billable seconds, description, account and work attributes. The API command is in the Tempo worklogs guide.
  4. Check the export against a number you trust. Compare the hours for one closed month with the Tempo report you already sent someone. Do this before anything is switched off.
  5. Keep the export somewhere your auditors can reach. It holds names and hours, so treat it as personnel data. After the archive window, this may be your only record of who logged what.
  6. Try the move on one team. Check in a test site or with a few people that new time is logged where you expect and shows the right author.
  7. Uninstall, then check the time tracking provider. Tempo’s page on ways to log time says Jira’s Log Work form isn’t available while Tempo Timesheets is the provider, so make sure people can log time before the cut-off.
  8. Put a date in your calendar for the end of the 90 days. It’s your last chance to reinstall and get anything you forgot.

What you can’t easily fix afterwards

Old worklogs keep the app account as author in Jira. Any tool that reads Jira, whichever one you choose, sees those hours as coming from one account. So old hours can still be totalled by project, epic or month, but not by person. The per-person history is the export.

Some teams report deleting the old worklogs and adding them back by script from the export. Treat that as a project of its own: it changes your history and depends on what Jira’s API allows for setting another person as author. Try it on one work item in a test site first.

Questions to ask the next app

Where Burnrate fits

Burnrate prices native Jira worklogs with dated cost and billing rates, and tracks budgets, burn rate and a run-out date. It has no time logging, timesheet or approvals, so you’d need another way to log time, such as Jira’s own Log work, if Timesheets is what you’re replacing. It can’t import your Tempo export. Hours left under Tempo’s account show as Unattributed, so old cost can’t be split per person. While Tempo is installed, its Tempo connection (beta) reads real authors from Tempo instead. Other options are in the comparison of Jira cost and budget apps.

It’s on the Atlassian Marketplace.

FAQ

Do I lose my worklogs if I uninstall Tempo from Jira Cloud? No. Tempo says they remain available in Jira, but the author and description are set to “Tempo Timesheet”, and Tempo-only fields such as accounts and attributes aren’t in Jira.

How long does Tempo keep my data after I uninstall? Tempo’s help page says about 90 days in total, and 1 year for Financial Manager data. If you reinstall within that window, it says your data is restored.

Why doesn’t worklogAuthor find people who log through Tempo? JQL reads Jira’s data, and on Cloud Jira holds the Tempo app account as the author rather than the person.

How do I keep the real worklog authors? Export them before you uninstall, using the Raw Data report or the Tempo REST API, which returns the author’s account ID.

Is this the same on Data Center? No. Tempo has a separate page for Data Center, and this guide doesn’t cover it.

Jira and Atlassian are trademarks of Atlassian. Tempo is a trademark of its owner. Kayabyte is an independent developer and is not affiliated with or endorsed by Atlassian or Tempo.