How to track work progress in Jira effectively?

[Suraj Pawar]

Hi Community,

I am new to Jira and working on a project.
I want to track the progress of work in a simple and clear way.

My questions are:

Which Jira features are best for tracking progress?

How do we know if a task is on time or delayed?

Are boards and reports useful for beginners?

[Sharad Dadarao Chate · Accepted solution]

@Suraj Pawar  Hi,

In Jira, you can track work progress in a simple way using these features:

Boards (Kanban or Scrum):
Boards show tasks in columns like To Do, In Progress, and Done.
By moving issues from one column to another, you can easily see the progress.

Issue Status:
Each task has a status.
If the task is still in To Do or In Progress, it means work is not finished.
If it is in Done, the task is completed.

Due Date and Assignee:
Due date helps you know if the task is on time or delayed.
Assignee shows who is responsible for the task.

Reports (for beginners):
Simple reports like Sprint Report or Burndown Chart help understand progress, but boards are enough for beginners.

For new users, starting with boards and issue status is the best and easiest way to track progress.

[Rahul_RVS]

Hi @Suraj Pawar 

If you are open to try out a mktplace app for a complete solution to manage your projects and track your tasks, take a look at our app:

Agile Tools

Below are the main features of the app:

1) Links/Portfolio/Advanced Roadmaps Hierarchy :- View/Manage roll up for hierarchy (up to 10 levels), based on your Portfolio/Advanced Roadmaps/Issue Links parent child relationship.

2) Epic Hierarchy :- View/Manage roll up for standard Jira hierarchy. Epic -> User Story -> Subtask

3) Time in Status :- More than 7 types of Time in Status reports to track issues.

4) Worklogs Report :- Track time spent by resources with multiple filters / category / grouping features

5) Timesheet :- View/Enter your time spent for multiple days

Disclaimer : I am one of the app team member

[Natalia_Kovalchuk_SaaSJet_]

Hi @Suraj Pawar!

Can recommend such tools for tracking your team activity and progress in Jira:

1. Activity Section (on each work item) - displays updates, comments, and a detailed history of all work items.

2. Created vs. Resolved Issues report -  can help you monitor the team's workload and progress over time.

3. Activity Stream gadget - good for real-time tracking. It displays your latest updates, comments, and transitions across the selected projects or users, allowing you to view them all on a single page in your dashboard.

4. Issue History for Jira app by SaaSJet -  provides a complete history of any changes within the Jira projects.  You can view and filter all changes across Jira work items, track user activity, see and restore deleted work items, monitor team accountability in real time, and export everything to CSV or Excel for reports or audits.

[Mary from Planyway]

Welcome to Jira, @Suraj Pawar ! 😊
Totally understand the need for a simple, clear way to track progress — Jira can feel overwhelming at first, but once you know where to look, it gets much easier.

1. Which Jira features are best for tracking progress?

For beginners, the most useful built-ins are:

• Boards (Scrum or Kanban)
Great for seeing what’s in progress, what’s done, and what’s stuck. They give you a live view of the team’s workflow.

• Issue statuses + workflows
Even a simple "To Do → In Progress → Done" workflow helps you quickly understand the state of each task.

• Dashboards
You can add gadgets like “Created vs Resolved”, “Burnup”, or “Pie Chart by Status” for an easy overview.

• Reports (if you're using a Scrum board)
Burndown, sprint reports, and velocity reports are helpful once you get comfortable.

2. How do we know if a task is on time or delayed?

A few options:

• Set due dates on issues — Jira will show when something is overdue.

• Use start and end dates (if your project type supports them).

• Look at cycle time / time in status to spot work that is taking longer than expected.

• Check the board regularly — if something sits in “In Progress” for too long, it’s often a sign.

A lot of teams use an add-on like Planyway for Jira to track work visually.
It gives you:

• a visual timeline/Gantt-like chart grouped by user, teams. epics, spaces or components,

• capacity planner to match your plans with real availability,

• progress bars,

• and a straightforward calendar for deadlines.

It’s especially helpful if your team prefers visual planning or wants to quickly see what’s on track vs delayed without building complex dashboards.

3. Are boards and reports useful for beginners?

Absolutely. Boards are usually the easiest place to start — visual and intuitive.

Reports depend on your process. If you’re just starting out, focus on:

• Sprint Report (Scrum)

• Control Chart (Kanban)

• Created vs Resolved

These give a good sense of progress without being too complicated.

[Anastasiia Maliei SaaSJet]

Hi @Suraj Pawar

1. Which Jira features are best for tracking progress?

To keep it simple, focus on the core essentials:

• Boards: This is your main workspace. For "simple and clear" tracking, a Kanban Board is best. It visualizes the flow of work using columns (e.g., To Do -> In Progress -> Done). You simply drag cards from left to right. If cards pile up in one column, you instantly see where the work is stuck.

• Workflows: These are the "statuses" your tasks move through. Make sure they reflect reality but keep them minimal. A simple flow like To Do -> In Progress -> Review -> Done is often better for beginners than a complex web of steps.

• Timeline (Roadmap): If you need a high-level view (e.g., monthly plans), use the built-in Timeline view. It acts like a simple Gantt chart, showing when tasks start and when they are expected to finish.

2. How do we know if a task is on time or delayed?

This is crucial. In Jira, there are two levels of tracking this:

Level 1: Basic (Standard Jira) Jira uses the Due Date field. If the date passes and the task isn't closed, Jira usually highlights the date in red on the card. This is simple, but reactive—you often only find out about the delay after the deadline is missed.

Level 2: Advanced (Bottleneck Detection) Often, a task gets delayed not at the end, but because it got "stuck" in the middle (e.g., sitting in "In Progress" or "Waiting for Approval" for too long). Standard Jira doesn't easily show you how long a task has been idling in a specific column.

This is where Time Metrics Tracker | Time Between Statuses by SaaSJet fits in natively. It integrates into Jira to fill this gap, making it much easier to spot delays early:

• See Hidden Delays: You can track exactly how long a task spent in each status (e.g., "This task was 'In Progress' for 5 days instead of the planned 1").

• Set Limits (SLAs): You can configure it to alert you: "If a task is in 'In Progress' for more than 3 days, flag it as a Warning."

• Prevent Issues: Instead of waiting for the final Due Date to turn red, you see the bottleneck forming on your board or report immediately and can fix it.

3. Are boards and reports useful for beginners?

Boards — Yes, absolutely. Without a board, Jira is just a database list. The board provides instant visual context.

Reports — Selectively.

• Avoid at first: Complex charts like Velocity or Burndown can be confusing if you aren't strictly following Scrum methodology.

• Good for beginners:

  • Time Metrics Tracker | Time Between Statuses: If you use the Time Metrics Tracker, its reports are often very intuitive for beginners because they answer the most basic question: "Where are we losing time?"

[Petru Simion _Simitech Ltd__]

Hi @Suraj Pawar ,

you can track progress by looking at how a single issue transitions through statuses, but that only works one issue at a time.

Where teams usually struggle is getting an overall picture.

Jira’s built-in boards and reports (Scrum/Kanban boards, burndown, control charts) are useful for beginners to understand flow at a high level, but they often hide important details, especially:

• How long work actually spends waiting in each status

• Where delays really happen

• Whether issues are “on time” or just moving forward slowly

That’s where a time-based view becomes very valuable.

Instead of checking issues one by one, tools like Time in Status Reporter for Jira , released by ourt team, let you:

• See how long issues spend in each status, not just where they are now

• Identify bottlenecks across the whole project, not just individual tickets

• Compare actual time spent vs expected flow, which helps spot delays early

• Analyze progress by assignee, status, or issue type in one place

In short:

• Issue-by-issue tracking helps with local questions

• Aggregated time-in-status views help you understand delivery health and delays across the project

For new Jira users, combining boards (for visibility) with time-in-status reporting (for clarity and accountability) gives a much more accurate picture of real progress.

Regards, 

Petru