11 ways to create a plan in Capacity Planner

Scope: Tempo Capacity Planner (Cloud).

Short answer: There are 11 ways to create a plan in the UI. They fall into four groups: the Resource Planning view, Jira work items, team-level planning, and Timesheets My Work. Plans can also be created through the Tempo REST API.

Summary

Resource Planning view

Open the Resource Planning view from Planning in the Tempo sidebar. It opens in Weeks view by default; switch to Days from the dropdown. Methods 1 to 8 all create plans here. Methods 1, 6 and 7 can be used in either view.

Method 1, Plan Time icon: Opens the Plan Time form. Use it to plan any resource on any work item or project.

Methods 2 and 4, plus (+) on a day: Click + on the day the plan should start, in the resource's row. In Weeks view, you then pick the work item. Use this for a work item that is not yet listed for the resource.

Method 3, click a day on a work item row: In Weeks view, expand the resource, then click a day on that work item's row. This fills the unused hours of that day with the work item. If the day is already fully booked, you cannot add more hours this way.

Method 5, period plan: Click and drag across several days in a resource's timeline. The dates fill the Plan Time form. This works in Weeks and Days view.

Method 6, Plan Time form with Period: For non-synced plans, tick Period, set an End Date, then enter Planned Time as Total hours (spread evenly across working days) or Per day hours. Days with 0 available hours are excluded unless Include non-working days is ticked.

Method 7, drag from the side panel: Open the Work Items side panel on the right and drag a work item onto the resource's timeline. In Weeks view, the plan fills the day's remaining hours. In Days view, a fully booked day opens the Plan Time form.

Method 8, Import: Click Import at the top right. Eligible work items are listed and you pick the ones to import. Each work item needs Assignee, Due Date (today or later) and Original Estimate, and must not be Closed or Resolved. Hours are spread back from the due date across the resource's workload scheme. Imported plans keep a link to their Jira item and show an import icon. Import is not available when Sync Plans with Jira Work Items is enabled.

Jira work items

Method 9, automatic sync: When Sync Plans with Jira Work Items is enabled, a plan is created automatically when a new work item has all of these fields filled in: plan start date, plan end date, total planned time, and assignee. For older work items, fill in the missing fields, or clear and re-add one of them to trigger creation.

Method 10, Jira work item view: Click the Tempo icon in the work item toolbar, then Plan Time. Anyone can plan their own time this way. A team lead, or anyone with Manage Plans for a team, can search for a team member in the User field and plan for them.

Team-level planning

Method 11, Flex Plan: Create a Flex Plan from the Plan Time shortcut or by selecting time in the Flex Plan row. It needs only dates, and it does not use team capacity. Until it is assigned to a team or Jira work item, only its creator can see it. Assigning a team, or dragging the plan to a team, converts it to a Team Plan. Adding a team and linking an Epic overwrites the Epic's Tempo Team, Start date, End date and Total planned time.

Team Planning also shows Jira Epics that are assigned to a Tempo Team as team plans on a roadmap. Epics need the Tempo Team, Start date and Due date fields set. Editing them in Planner changes the Epic. This is a view of existing Epics, not a separate creation method, so it is not counted in the 11.

Timesheets My Work (outside Capacity Planner)

If Tempo Timesheets is installed, you can also plan time from the My Work calendar. This depends on Timesheets, so it is not counted in the 11.

Tempo REST API

Plans can also be created programmatically through the Tempo Planner plans endpoint at https://api.tempo.io/4/plans. A request body that creates a single plan on a Jira issue looks like this:

{
  "assigneeId": "60ad32ec411c2200684cd355",
  "assigneeType": "USER",
  "description": "On call",
  "effortPersistenceType": "TOTAL_SECONDS",
  "startDate": "2025-11-17",
  "endDate": "2025-11-18",
  "startTime": "23:00",
  "includeNonWorkingDays": true,
  "planItemId": "66000",
  "planItemType": "ISSUE",
  "plannedSeconds": 36000
}

Field notes: planItemId is the numeric Jira issue ID. assigneeId is the Atlassian account ID. effortPersistenceType controls how plannedSeconds is split across days. startTime is taken into account, but a known gap exists: with TOTAL_SECONDS, a plan that starts late in the day is still split evenly across the days (see Tempo Idea T-I-3434). Send requests with a Tempo API token as a Bearer token. Field names were taken from the Idea and have not been checked against the live Cloud reference, so confirm them at apidocs.tempo.io before you rely on them.

Permissions: The API applies the same rules as the UI. The caller needs View Plans and Manage Plans for the assignee's team to plan for other people.

Permissions and limits

Planning time for other team members in the Resource Planning view needs View Plans and Manage Plans for their team. Methods 8 and 10 for other people need the same permissions. You cannot edit non-synced plans that a team lead or another user created for you. Imported plans lose their Jira link if you move them, change their hours, or change their assignee in Planner. Confirm the Edit plan anyway prompt only if you want to break that link.

Sources

• Get Started with Tempo Capacity Planner

• Resource Planning

• Planning Time for Resources

• Creating Plans by Importing Jira Work Items

• Team Planning

• Flexible Team Planning

• Planning Your Own Time

• Creating Plans in the Jira Work Item View

• Tempo Ideas T-I-3434: Take start and end time in consideration when planning

• Tempo API documentation

Maintained by Susan Wu. Last reviewed 15 Oct 2026.