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How to Fetch Accurate Status Transition Dates (e.g., "Analyzed" → "Approved") Without Using expand=c

Mohith Tummala

Hi Atlassian Community,

I’m working on a backend system that fetches Jira Epics and I need to determine the actual start date specifically the date when an issue transitions from Analyzed to Approved. I’ve tried filtering with JQL like status in AND status was Analyzed BEFORE AND status was Approved AFTER, which helps limit the issues but doesn’t expose the actual transition date.

Using created or updated fields is misleading as they often don’t reflect the real status change. The only working method so far is adding expand=changelog and then parsing the changelog to extract the transition date, but this significantly affects performance due to the heavy payload and making API calls for every epic.

Is there any alternative way to retrieve just the status transition date without pulling the full changelog?

I’d really appreciate any guidance or confirmation on whether this is a technical limitation in Jira Cloud REST API.

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Maria Rusnakova

Hi @Mohith Tummala ,

you can create a post-function on the transition from Analyzed to Approved that will fill in the date field 'Actual Start Date' with the current date. But it will work only for new Epics, for existing issues you will have to fill in it manually.

Another option is to use any add-on.

Mohith Tummala

Hello @Maria Rusnakova

Thank you so much for the suggestion the post-function approach with a custom Actual startdate field sounds like clean and sustainable solution for tracking transition dates going forward.

However, in our current context, i am mainly trying to resolve this for a large volume of existing Portfolio Epics from different projects possibly millions of them, which unfortunately makes manual backfilling unfeasible at scale. so that's the reason i thought not to use chagelog too.

so for sure the approach should also fetch existing epics transition dates.

Natalia_Kovalchuk_SaaSJet_

Hi @Mohith Tummala ,

If I understand you correctly, you need to get the exact date of multiple issue status transitions.

I recommend trying Issue History for Jira app from my team. It allows filtering specific status transitions of epics and issues, as well as viewing their exact date and time updates.

In case you need the specific date of the epic status transition, you can do the following:

Open the app and use the filter by JQL (issuetype = Epic). Also, you can set the specific date range if needed.

issue-history (2).png

In the Status column, you can filter the status transitions needed (they will reflect the statuses configured in your workflow). For example, in my case, I can filter the statuses To Do → In Progress.

You will receive a list of epics with the required status transitions and the dates of their changes.

You can export this report in CSV or Excel format.

In case you need the specific date of the issue status transition, you can do the following:

Filter issues by project, assignee, sprint, updated by, and more.
In the Status column, you can also use a filter to select the specific status transitions you need (e.g., In Progress → Done).

You can also export such a report easily if needed.

I hope it can help in your case.

Maria Rusnakova

Hi @Mohith Tummala ,

for a large number of existing issues, add-on would be probably the fastest solution.

Petru Simion [Simitech Ltd.]

Hi @Mohith Tummala ,

You can write a scripted field that will search the history of the ticket and display the information you need. A scripted field will act on existing and new created tickets.

If you are open to using apps you can use Issue History Dashboard for Jira (Work Item History) an app released by our company.

You can filter your search by Issue Type, Updated field, Value from and Value to.

Here is an example searching for Stories where field Status was changed from In Progress to Done.

You can also use other filtering criterias if you need to.

The result is exportable to CSV.

Regards,

Petru

Mohith Tummala

Got it, I will check with my Jira Admin.

Thanks Maria

Mohith Tummala

Hi @Petru Simion _Simitech Ltd__

Thanks for such useful Information,

I got an idea now how we can create scripted field that fetches Historical and new transition dates.

thankyou

Mohith Tummala

Hi @Natalia_Kovalchuk_SaaSJet_ ,

Thanks for your time and clear explanation,

I am not sure that i can use custom apps on top of our enterprise resources to achieve the solution. but i will check thanks alot your app is super cool and useful in such scenarios.

Kr,
Mohith

Ayça Erdem_OBSS_

Hello @Mohith Tummala

You're right the Jira Cloud REST API doesn’t provide a direct way to retrieve the timestamp of a specific status transition without expanding the changelog.

If you’re open to using a third-party app, I’d recommend checking out Timepiece - Time in Status for Jira, developed by our team at OBSS. It reads historical issue data already stored in Jira and provides detailed reports such as:

Transition Dates: Including the exact date/time when an issue moved from “Analyzed” to “Approved”.
Status Duration: How long an issue stayed in each status.
Cycle/Lead Time and more.

The best part is that you don’t need to build complex scripts or parse the changelog the app does the heavy lifting for you and can even present the results in a tabular report or REST API format, with options to export to CSV/Excel.

Let me know if you’d like more information.

Hope this helps.

Ayça

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