What is Jira Time Tracking?
Time tracking is the process of logging the time spent on various tasks and projects. It provides the raw data needed for issuing paychecks, invoicing clients and estimating the cost of future products. Tracking your time in Jira saves you on the overhead of investing in, configuring and learning another product. It also ensures that up-to-date time tracking data is available for planning and estimations.
Uses of Jira Time Tracking
Time tracking has uses beyond providing the needed backup for payroll and audit trails. Done correctly, time tracking can reduce administrative overhead, provide business insights for better project planning and even improve your workflows.
Using Jira Time Tracking Data for Billing & Invoicing
For organizations that work on behalf of individual clients, you can save heaps of time if your Jira time tracking data includes the information needed for invoicing:
- Billable vs non-billable hours
- Client
- Project/Cost center
- Time spent
- Billing rate
You can capture this information by creating custom fields or via a Jira time tracking app that allows you to customize the data collected on your worklogs.
Resource & Capacity Planning
We (and especially managers) like to pretend that we have infinite capacity – that our teams can stretch to take on whatever needs to be done. It isn’t true. When people or teams are overloaded something has to give. It may be progress on another project, the quality of work, or how team members feel about their jobs. Simply put, loading your teams beyond their capacity is unsustainable.
You can use Jira time tracking data to inform your capacity planning. To determine your team’s overall capacity, you need to see where their time is going now. Confluence has a Capacity planning template that can be used to visualize this.
You could have each team member spend their precious time filling out the form, but a better solution would be to get the data from a Jira time tracking report. Not only does this save the time of completing the form, it also ensures that the information is accurate and not dependent on people's perceptions.
Now that you can see where team members' time is going, you can make decisions on where to reallocate in order to take on new work (or not).
👉Tip: If your capacity planning needs are more complex, consider getting a PPM and Capacity planning app from the Atlassian Marketplace
Understanding the Tempo of your Team’s Work
Time tracking data is especially useful for software development teams where estimated time is used for planning, budgeting and delivery projections. It facilitates retrospective analysis, revealing where time was well spent or where bottlenecks may have occurred.
Accurate historical time tracking data helps PMs make more accurate estimations, leading to better planning and on-time deliveries.
With real-time Jira time tracking data, teams can make adjustments on the fly. You can even integrate time tracking data into your Jira workflows to ensure people remember to log their time.
How Native Jira Time Tracking Works
Worklogs – The Building Blocks of Jira Time Tracking
Whether you are using Jira’s native functionality or a Jira time tracking app, the basic unit of time tracking in Jira is the worklog. At a minimum, a Jira worklog includes the user and work item (captured automatically), and the amount of time spent on the work item (entered manually, via a timer, or automatically). Worklogs can also include a description and estimate of the time needed/remaining.
Time tracking is enabled in Jira Cloud by default and anyone can log work on a work item by clicking on the … menu in the upper right corner and selecting Log work. A popup of the Jira worklog will prompt you for the time worked, and (optionally) a description of the work completed.
How to Configure Native Jira Time Tracking Settings
Your Administrator may configure Jira time tracking with specific permissions, projects and settings:
Jira Global Time Tracking Settings
Navigate to Jira settings > Work items > Work item features > Time tracking. Click on the Edit global settings button to adjust:
- Working hours per day
- Working hours per week
- Time display format
- Default time tracking unit
- Whether or not comments made when the work item is transitioned are copied to the worklog
Jira Time Tracking Permissions
An administrator can also set permissions for who can create (Work on work items), edit and delete worklogs. To set time tracking permissions, navigate to Jira settings > Work items > Work item attributes > Permission schemes. Select the appropriate scheme and click Permissions. Scroll down to the Time Tracking Permissions. Click Update if you want to grant the permission to a new group/role, and Remove if you want to rescind the permission.
Jira Time Tracking Fields
Finally, you can add the Jira Time Tracking field to your screens to help users remember to log their time. To add a field to a screen, navigate to Space Settings > Screens. Click on the pencil icon to the right of the appropriate screen scheme as noted by the work item type.
Select the screen that you want to configure. If you have different screens for different operations select the Edit work item screen.
Use the dropdown at the bottom of the list of fields to select the Time Tracking field. Drag the field to the position in the list that corresponds with where you want to see the field on the work item. You can also change the position of the field by adjusting the work item type layout.
Logging Time with Native Jira Time Tracking
When a user clicks into the Time tracking field on an work item, a popup will open to collect additional information:
There are three Jira time tracking fields, in addition to the time logged in a single work session:
- Original Estimate (set when the work item is created)
- Estimated Time Remaining
- Time Spent (cumulative)
The Estimated Time Remaining and Time Spent fields are automatically updated by Jira after each worklog entry, so the work item always shows current metrics.
Limitations of Native Jira Time Tracking
While Jira’s native time tracking does allow users to easily log time on a work item, it has some significant limitations:
- Time must be logged manually
- Customization options are limited (for instance, there’s no way to capture if the hours logged are billable on the worklog)
- Limited configuration options (working hours, holiday schedules, etc.)
- No integration with third-party calendars (Google, Outlook)
- Few reporting options (see below)
- No mechanism for ensuring time is logged each time a user works on the work item
- No cost or rate tracking
- No way to recognize over / undertime work
Even Atlassian suggests using a time tracking app.
Jira Time Tracking Reports
Jira’s native time tracking feeds into a series of built-in reports, including time tracking / workload reports, which can be accessed from the upper nav bar.
Jira User Workload Report
The User Workload Report shows the estimated time for unresolved work items assigned to a user.
Jira Version Workload Report
Similarly, the Version Workload Report shows the time estimates for all unresolved work items in a particular version, broken down by user and work type.
Jira Time Tracking Report
Jira Time Tracking Report includes the original and current time estimates, as well as the actual time spent allowing you to monitor progress and assess the accuracy of your estimations.
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Limitations of Jira Time Tracking Reports
While these reports are useful, they are designed for monitoring progress and forecasting. Lack of configuration options means they can’t be easily adapted to other use cases. For example, the User Workload Report cannot be configured to include multiple users. There’s no mechanism for exporting report data to Excel or a CSV file, and Jira does not provide a way to query and aggregate Jira worklog data.
The need for more flexible reporting is one of the key reasons that many companies opt to use a Time Tracking App from the Atlassian Marketplace. Compare the report above with this Timesheet from Clockwork Pro:
The Clockwork timesheet can:
- Be filtered to include/ exclude multiple factors (users, epics, spaces, work item types, custom fields, custom worklog attributes and overtime/undertime work)
- Be broken down by multiple factors including custom fields and custom worklog attributes
- Show actual time spent vs estimates.
- Be toggled to show time, costs or billing rates
- Exported to create payroll request or branded invoice
Jira Time Tracking Apps & Plugins
Using a Jira time tracking app from the Atlassian marketplace can transform time tracking from a “necessary evil” into a key for unlocking insights into how your teams work. Some of the advantages of using a Jira time tracking app include:
More Ways to Capture Time
Native Jira relies on users remembering to open the worklog and add their time. Many Marketplace apps offer additional ways to capture time which can improve adoption (if you’re introducing a time tracking system see Jira Time Tracking Solution: Tips for Implementation for tips) and save on overhead as your admins won’t need to chase down timesheets. Jira time tracking apps can capture time worked by:
- Starting and stopping a timer on the Jira work item
- Adding a worklog from an existing timesheet or claendar
- Integrating timesheets with work calendars (Google, Outlook)
- Automatic time capture based on the assigned user and work item status (see this video).
Customizable Jira Worklogs
Adding attributes to your Jira worklogs allows you to capture information needed for use cases beyond project monitoring and forecasting. You can add a billable hours attribute and a customer attribute to track data for invoicing; or add a Product attribute so you know which product your Marketing team is spending time promoting. Using worklog attributes enables you to capture that data without the administrative overhead of creating / managing Jira custom fields.
Customizable Jira Time Tracking Reports
While native Jira time tracking feeds into a few pre-built reports, there’s no way to slice and dice worklog data into different views. Jira time trackings apps empower you to collect the data you need and then extract worklog data in multiple forms to create useful reports. Clockwork customers describe using reports to:
- Account for time spent on a project
- Provide data to the accounting department for invoicing
- Summarize work completed for clients
Choosing a Jira Time Tracking App
When choosing a Jira time tracking app, you’ll want to consider features, as well as scope and price to find the app that fits your teams.
Note that some Jira time tracking apps are actually time tracking integrations: they allow you to integrate Jira with standalone time tracking software. If you have teams that don’t use Jira, a time tracking integration might be a good option. However, if most or all of your teams work in Jira, then using a purpose-built Jira time tracking app will avoid the need for additional systems and accounts.
Advantages of Tracking Time with Clockwork Pro for Jira
At a fraction of the cost of Tempo, Clockwork Pro for Jira provides all of the rich time tracking functionality you need:
If your teams work in Jira, then that’s where they should track their time. Jira’s native time tracking provides a solid starting point for logging work, but most teams quickly outgrow its limitations. Whether you need better billing data, richer insights for planning, or more reliable ways to capture time, the right Marketplace app can turn time tracking into a powerful operational tool.
Clockwork Pro provides flexible reports, customizable worklogs, and automated time capture that help your teams plan accurately, bill confidently, and work more efficiently.
