Time in Jira Fields: A Simple Way to Measure Field Change Duration

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Understanding time in Jira fields sounds simple - until someone asks you to show proof.

Auditors, compliance teams, and product managers all use Jira as a system of record. But when the question is "How long this task has remained in a particular field value?" then native Jira history quickly falls short. Status changes are visible, but field level times, value length, and history are difficult to track - especially for custom fields.

This lack of visibility creates real risks. Compliance reviews take longer than they should. Teams spend hours recreating timelines instead of making processes better.

In this article, we'll examine what time in Jira fields really means, why Jira's built-in history isn't meant for audits, and how teams can track field changes accurately.

What Does "Time in Jira Fields" Mean?

In Jira, every work item is a set of fields - status, assignee, priority, approvals, due dates, and custom fields that reflect your business process. Field-level history tracks the history of every change that has been made to those fields, including what changed, when it changed, and who changed it.

Time in Jira fields goes one step further. It calculates the duration of time a certain field value existed prior to the next update. In other words, it measures the time difference between selected field changes over the lifecycle of a task.

Time in Status vs. Time in Jira Fields

This is where a lot of teams get confused.

Time in status:

• Measures the duration of a task being in workflow statuses (e.g. In Progress, Blocked).
• Limited to only the Status field.
• Useful for flow metrics, and not for audits.

Time in Jira fields:

• Measures the length of time that any selected field value remains unchanged.
• Works with system fields and custom fields.
• Calculates the time difference between the change of field value.
• Essential for compliance, SLA analysis, and historical reporting.

For example, rather than simply knowing when the task changed to Waiting for Approval, you are able to calculate exactly how long the approval field remained pending - something you wouldn't get from native Jira reporting.

Understanding this distinction is the basis of accurate audits, reliable reports, and defensible compliance data in Jira.

Why Native Jira History Is Not Enough

Jira captures changes, but it is just telling half the story. It records what and when it changed, but not how long a value remained in a field. This becomes a limitation to teams that require a clear and simple answer.

As an example, consider a compliance team reviewing the task and asking: “How long did this task wait to be approved?”. In Jira, you are able to see when the Approval field was changed to Pending and when it was updated to Approved. Nevertheless, Jira doesn’t calculate the duration between those changes. This has to be done manually.

It is also the case with the Priority field. The Product Manager may want to know: “How long was this bug marked as High priority?”. Jira displays the time of the last priority field change to High and the time of the last change, but doesn’t display the cumulative time that the task was at that priority. 

Practically, it means that Jira native history is suitable when it comes to quick checks; however, it can’t be used in audits, compliance reviews, or performance analysis. The absence of automatic time calculations of field values places the teams at a guess or requires manual effort when they require accurate and dependable answers.

How to Track Time in Jira Fields with Full Task History

The basic history view in Jira isn’t enough when you need to monitor time in Jira fields. You must have a record of all the changes in the fields and an easy way to view the time that each value remained the same.

This is where the Issue History for Jira app provided by SaaSJet comes in. The app provides a Field Changes Duration report, which is included in the Advanced plan.

It allows you to:

• See every change made in the chosen field.
• Get the time difference between the selected field changes.
• See the result directly in the Excel table.

It works for both standard and custom fields, and you don’t need to compare dates or calculate anything by hand.

For example, you need to understand how long tasks assigned to the Development team stayed in the High priority field. Instead of checking each tasks one by one and calculating dates manually, you can see the exact time spent at High priority for all relevant tasks in a single report.

To do this, install Issue History for Jira from the Atlassian Marketplace, open the app from the Apps menu, and use the filters. Select the required space and set the date range. Then, open the Columns menu, choose the Priority field, and add it to the report. Then click Export and select Excel (Advanced).

You will get such a report:

This makes it easy to answer simple questions like “How long did this field value stay the same?” and provide clear proof when needed.

With automatic calculations and full history, tracking time in Jira fields becomes simple, accurate, and ready for audits.

🔍 Need better visibility into time in Jira fields?

Issue History for Jira app helps you automatically calculate how long field values stay the same, view full task history, and export audit-ready reports.

Try Issue History for Jira on Atlassian Marketplace →

Summing Up

So, tracking time in Jira fields gives you clear answers about how work was handled. With Issue History for Jira app from SaaSJet team, you can not only get full task history in easy exportable format, but also see how long field values stayed the same. It allows you to avoid manual calculations and get reliable data for reviews, audits, and daily decisions.

[Calogero Bonasia]

After years of consulting on complex Jira projects in enterprise contexts, I can confirm that the distinction between "time in status" and "time in field" represents one of the most underestimated critical points in corporate implementations.

I have faced countless situations where compliance teams and auditors required precise evidence of the duration of specific values in custom fields - from approvals to security classifications - and Jira's native history systematically proved insufficient. The need for manual calculations not only slows down audit processes but introduces unacceptable margins of error in regulated contexts.

The ability to automatically calculate duration between value changes on any field, not just workflow statuses, precisely fills this gap. Particularly relevant is the possibility to export data in Excel format with calculations already performed: it transforms an activity that could require hours of manual work into an immediate and verifiable report.

In sectors where temporal traceability of changes constitutes a regulatory or contractual requirement, tools of this type are not optional but an operational necessity.

Congratulations to the SaaSJet team for developing a solution that addresses a real and often overlooked need in the Atlassian ecosystem.