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How to create custom time tracking fields in Jira?

Hizkeel Khan

Hi,

I have a scenario where I have to create multiple custom fields:

1. Time Estimate for Developers.

2. Time Spent by Developers.

3. Time Estimate for QA

4. Time Spent by QA

First of all, I need to create these 4 custom fields as I want to track time for developers and QA separately. Is is possible in Jira?

Secondly, when these fields are created, I want to see in the report how much time is spent collectively and individually on each ticket.

Purpose is to see if the time exceeds the original estimates given by developers? Please let me know if someone has done it or help me out here.

This is really important for me.

Accepted answers

All comments

Dániel Ballabás - catworkx

Hi @Hizkeel Khan

this is Daniel from one of the many Time Tracking app vendors on the Atlassian Marketplace. If you are comfortable with a paid third-party plugin (although with the below 10 user count free Jira, we are also free) - I'd like to highlight the tags feature of our app, Timetracker.

In your case, you could create custom tags in the app to differentiate QA and Dev worklogs to track the time spent by the two teams.

As for having two types of estimations, I believe you would have to use subtasks for the two teams - (instead of tags, you can also use them for differentiating the two teams) you can then roll up the estimations and the worklogs in our reports.

Daniel

Hizkeel Khan

It cannot be done using Jira? Do we have to install the 3rd party apps?

Dániel Ballabás - catworkx

It can be done, but I think it's more convenient with an app - plus maybe you'll find other benefits of apps as well. If you want to stay on native Jira, you'll have to do workarounds:

- just keep using separate issues for the QA and the Dev teams for everything, then you can use the Jira native Estimation and Time tracking fields. - without an app, you cannot add any metadata to worklogs.

- alternatively, you can create the custom fields for the 2 separate estimations, and probably with Automations, you should be able to separate worklogs on the Issue (and to count them against the Estimations), but honestly, setting it up would be above my Automation skills.

Valeriia_Havrylenko_SaaSJet

Hi @Hizkeel Khan 👋

1. You can create custom fields in Jira without any add-ons.

For this follow this steps:

Select > Issues.
Under FIELDS, select Custom fields.
Click Create custom field. Make sure to select All to view the available field options.
Select the type of field you want to create and click Next. See a list and descriptions for the available custom field types in company-managed projects.
Add the details for your field.
The name you select appears as the custom field's title wherever the field appears. The description appears below the field when creating and editing issues, but not when browsing issues.
When you have entered the field details, select Create.
Add the new custom field to one or multiple screens by ticking the corresponding box and click Update.

2. You can't create report how much time is spent collectively and individually on each ticket without add-ons.

For this, i guess you can try Time in Status.

The primary purpose is to help teams gather valuable data about the lifecycle of your issues in Jira. Add-on allows you to measure and visualize the time spent in each status, such as "Open," "In Progress," "In Review," and "Closed," and provide 7 types of reports to help you identify areas for improvement. But also with our add-on and reports you easily can have information for example "how much time was spent on support versus how much time was spent on product features".

One of the helpful report for you can be The Assignee time report. Report shows the total time a particular assignee has been working on the issue. That’s why it’s especially useful for identifying who is responsible for the workflow delays. It shows which assignee has been solving the task longer than it might be necessary.
How it works: Assignee_Time_in _status.gif

For report how much time is spent collectively on each ticket we have User Groups.

For this you need to

add user group
write down a name to your custom column
add necessary users to a group.

User Groups 2.png

As a result, you'll get one column with summed data from your previously selected columns.

User Groups 3.png

Add-on has a 30-day free trial version and free up to 10 users.
Please, let me know if you have any questions

Hope it helps 😌

Mehmet A _Bloompeak_

Hi @Hizkeel Khan

If you prefer to use a marketplace app, you can try Status Time Reports app developed by our team. It mainly provides reports and gadgets based on how much time passed in each status.

Here is the online demo link, you can see it in action and try without installing the app. For your case, you can have a look at Time in Status for Each Issue and Time in Assignee reports as examples. For further details, please see Status Time Reports How to Videos.

This app has a dynamic status grouping feature so that you can generate various valuable reports as time in status, time in assignee, status entry dates and status counts, cycle time and lead time, average/sum reports by any field(e.g. average in progress time by project, average cycle time by issue creation month).

You can search issues by Project, Issue Type, Status, Assignee, Issue Creation/Resolution Date(and any other Date field) and JQL Query.
Status durations are calculated according to the working calendar you define. Once you enter your working calendar into the app, it takes your working schedule into account too. That is, "In Progress" time of an issue opened on Friday at 5 PM and closed on Monday at 9 AM, will be a few hours rather than 3 days.
You can set different duration formats.
You can export reports in CSV file format and open them in MS Excel.
You can also add this app as a gadget to your Jira dashboards and reach “Status Time” from Issue Detail page.
You can enable/disable access to Status Time reports&gadgets and Issue Detail page per project, users, groups or project role.

If you are looking for a completely free solution, you can try the limited version Status Time Free.

Hope it helps.

Emre Toptancı [OBSS]

Hello @Hizkeel Khan ,

For development and QA time estimation, your best bet would be to look at the past performance of your teams. To do that, Development and QA stages should be represented with separate status(es) in your workflow. After that you can get reports showing how much time your team spent on those statuses in the past and make future estimations based on that.

Our team at OBSS built Timepiece - Time in Status for Jira exactly for this. It is available for Jira Server, Cloud, and Data Center.

Time in Status mainly allows you to see how much time each issue spent on each status or each assignee.

tisCloud_StatusDuration_LeadTime_with Estimates.png

You can combine the time for multiple statuses to get metrics like Issue Age, Cycle Time, Lead Time, Resolution Time etc.

For all numeric report types, you can calculate averages and sums of those durations grouped by the issue fields you select. For example total in-progress time per customer or average resolution time per sprint, week, month, issuetype, request type, etc. The ability to group by parts of dates (year, month, week, day, hour) or sprints is particularly useful here since it allows you to compare different time periods or see the trend.

tisCloud_StatusDuration_LeadTime_Average_TimeGrouped.png

The app calculates its reports using already existing Jira issue histories so when you install the app, you don't need to add anything to your issue workflows and you can get reports on your past issues as well. It supports both Company Managed and Team Managed projects for Jira Cloud.

Time in Status reports can be accessed through its own reporting page, dashboard gadgets, and issue view screen tabs. All these options can provide both calculated data tables and charts.

Timepiece - Time in Status for Jira

EmreT

Sam Huawey

Short answer: you cannot. Maybe there is a plugin that provides custom field that mimics Time Tracking, but guys from above do not provide one.

Long answer: consider creating separate issue types for developers, QA and management. This way you can use a standard Time Tracking field for each of them. Moreover, developers, QA and management can have their own schedule and sprints without interacting with each other. Mixing statuses of different teams into one workflow is a bad idea.

I worked in organization that had separate management, development and QA teams and everything was so intuitive and simple - each team works with its own tickets, perhaps linking them together in Plans or Structure.

Anton from JetHeads_io

I completely agree with this approach — separating concerns is key. Creating a custom issue field or issue type to define the work type, then using the classic time tracking approach, makes sense.

However, Jira’s native reporting can be limiting when it comes to flexible time tracking reports. You might want to consider a third-party app like JetTime, which not only handles time tracking but also allows you to track and report on custom metrics, including financial data. Plus, JetTime is built with privacy in mind, ensuring that your data stays secure.

👉 JetTime on the Atlassian Marketplace

— Anton, Developer of JetTime

Michał Krysiuk - Terano Apps

Hi everyone,

Reading through this thread, it’s clear that many teams here are trying to achieve the same thing — separate time tracking for different roles (Dev, QA, etc.) — and running into the limitation that Jira provides only a single built-in Time Tracking field.

Several of the apps mentioned earlier in this discussion offer reporting on existing worklogs or time-in-status, but none of them actually allow you to create additional Time Tracking fields that behave like Jira’s native field.

We’ve recently released an app that addresses exactly this gap by allowing you to create multiple Time Tracking–style custom fields in Jira Cloud.
Each field works just like Jira’s original time tracking (parsing, formatting, validation), so you can set up fields such as:

Dev Time Tracking
QA Time Tracking
…or any other team-specific estimates and time-spent values.

Here’s how it looks on an issue — it appears exactly like Jira’s native Time Tracking, so the experience is fully familiar for users:

Obraz 3.12.2025, godz. 23.03.jpg

Here’s the app if you’d like to take a look: Time Tracking Fields for Jira

If anyone here is still exploring ways to track separate estimates or logged time per team, or has a specific scenario in mind, feel free to reach out — happy to help clarify what’s possible with multiple time-tracking fields.

Best regards,
Michał from Terano Apps

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