Assistance at the time of registration

[Barbara Saldaña]

Hi, I am the Master Admin for all workspaces in our company. The team is required to log their weekly activity hours, but I’ve noticed that some employees aren't doing it. Management has requested that any idle time be recorded under a specific activity, but employees still aren't logging it.

I was reviewing a few time-tracking apps, but almost all of them require users to log in and record time under their own credentials. Is there a way for me, as a Super Admin, to log this idle time on their behalf without it being counted as my own time? Or what other solutions have you found for these cases?

[James Gamble]

Hola Barbara,

The existing answers are on the right track. Native Jira Cloud doesn’t allow an administrator to create a worklog for another user. The worklog will be recorded against whichever account submits it, so using your own account, automation, or a service account won’t meet the requirement.

Tempo Timesheets has already been mentioned; it’s the most relevant option to evaluate, as it includes the Log Work for Others permission. I’d verify during your trial that the permission can be limited to the appropriate administrators and projects, and that the resulting entries appear under the employee rather than the person entering the time.

If the goal is also to ensure everyone submits a complete weekly timesheet, check whether the app supports reminders, approvals, and missing-time reporting. Those controls may reduce the frequency with which an administrator needs to manually enter idle time.

Thanks,

James

[Barbara Saldaña]

Thanks James, I did check that option, but I was looking for something similar to how Service Management works out of the box in Jira. As for the objectives, we already manage some dashboards built with eazyBI.

[Arkadiusz Wroblewski]

Hello and Welcome to Atlassian Community @Barbara Saldaña 

Native Jira Cloud doesn't allow logging work on behalf of another user, even for Product Admins. Worklogs are always hardcoded to the account creating them.

To log time for others, you'll need a Marketplace app like Tempo Timesheets (which includes a "Log Work for Others" permission).

Avoid using automation or service accounts because hours will simply be attributed to the bot.

Which time-tracking apps are you currently evaluating?

Best,

Arek 🤠

[Barbara Saldaña]

Thanks Arkadiusz. Indeed, we've evaluated Tempo Timesheets, but it comes at an extra cost, and subscribing requires licensing all users—not just administrators. That’s why we were looking for something native to Jira

[Arkadiusz Wroblewski]

Time Tracker ? 

[Anton from JetHeads_io]

That's fair, and Tempo's a solid, mature tool — licensing every user is really just how most Marketplace apps are priced, ours included. Where JetTime (the app from my other reply here) can help on budget: it's free for teams up to 10 users.

Above 10 users, it's one of the most cost-effective options you'll find on the Marketplace — so licensing the whole team lands lighter than you'd expect.

[Aaron Pavez _ServiceRocket_]

Hi @Barbara Saldaña 

Unless you use a 3rd party app like Scriptrunner or JMWE to validate the time logging field has a value on a transition, you cant.

You could log in as another user, but that will take a loooooong time.

You could use a service account API so all time logged will be the service account API.

Sadly this falls into the "Train your people" area, and if they dont get it, you give them the hammer.

Also, logging idle time, why? does your company needs to log all time even idle? 

Regards

[Barbara Saldaña]

Thank you for your quick reply Aaron. Yes, I am required to record everything in order to generate KPIs based on a weekly timeframe :(

[Anton from JetHeads_io]

Hey Barbara! 👋

The others are right that native Jira can't log work for someone else — and the attribution point you raised is the real catch. Service accounts or logging in as someone else all park the hours under the wrong name. That exact gap is what JetTime (a third-party Jira app) closes.

• Log work for any employee, and it lands as their own native Jira work log — attributed to them, not you, and visible everywhere Jira shows time, not locked inside the app
• Only people you grant the View and Manage Others Work Logs permission can log for others — so it stays controlled
• Track idle / non-productive time as its own time category, separate from regular hours — each one totals on its own line in reports
• Report team hours by user, date, or project, then export to Excel or CSV
• Runs on Atlassian — your team's time data stays inside Atlassian Cloud, we don't have access

👉 JetTime on the Atlassian Marketplace

— Anton, JetTime founder