Do Weeks in the Control Chart report count as 5 or 7 days?

Seán Ó hAnnracháin

Using the Control Charts report, where the results refer to weeks, are they counting this as 7 days or 5 please? Do days count as 24 hours?

In one of my results there is a result that refers to 1 week and 1 day, and there is a different result that refers to 6 days. Given that a result is shown as 6 days, I'm assuming that the results are showing in 7 day weeks, as if they were 5, it would be 1 week and 1 day for the latter.

I haven't ticked "Include non-working days in calculations". Frankly, what that option does isn't clear to me. From reading it, I have inferred from the description that it would count all on-working days in the results, which would conflict with my assumptions above.

In the board settings for my team, the Standard Working Days options are set as Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday & Friday, but I'm not clear on whether this has any impact on the Control Chart results.

I'm not interested in using any paid plug in to resolve this, as I'm unlikely to get permission to do so.

I'm not an admin in Jira, if that matters here. I only want to get precise figures for Lead Time and Cycle Time.

Thanks!

 

Iryna Komarnitska_SaaSJet_

Hi @Seán Ó hAnnracháin ,

1. Do “weeks” mean 5 days or 7 days? And is a “day” 24 hours?

In the Control Chart:

• 1w is always treated as 7 days, regardless of how your working days are configured.

• 1d is always treated as 24 hours. 

So your interpretation is correct: if you’re seeing 6 days vs 1 week 1 dayThose are using a 7-day week as the base.

Under the hood, Jira stores elapsed time in hours and then converts it into weeks/days using these fixed constants, which is why the display can look a bit odd.

2. What does “Include non-working days in calculations” actually do?

There are two things at play:

1. Board working days configuration
   On your board (Board → Configure → Working days), you define:

   • standard working days (Mon–Fri in your case)

   • specific non-working dates (holidays, etc.)

   Several reports, including the Control Chart, use these settings.

2. The “Include non-working days in calculations” checkbox in the Control Chart

   • Unchecked: Jira should calculate cycle/lead time using only configured working time (based on your working days and time-tracking settings, e.g. 8h per day).

   • Checked: Jira includes all calendar time – weekends and non-working days are counted as if work could have happened on them. 

However, even when Jira uses working-time under the hood, it still displays the result using 1d = 24h and 1w = 7 days, so the label can be confusing. There are also some open issues where the Control Chart doesn’t perfectly respect working-day settings in all scenarios. 

3. Does your board’s “Standard Working Days” setting affect the Control Chart?

Yes, it does have an impact – that’s where Jira gets the definition of “non-working days” that the report will exclude/include. 

But again, the visual labels (w and d) are based on fixed 7-day weeks and 24-hour days, regardless of those settings. So the numbers you see are effectively “working-time hours” formatted into calendar-style weeks/days.

If you want to double-check what’s going on for one specific issue, you can:

1. Apply a very narrow filter in the Control Chart so only 1–2 issues show.

2. Open the issue’s history and note when it entered and left the “In Progress” (or target) status.

3. Compare that with your working-day/working-hour configuration to see how Jira got that duration.

4. If you ever can use an app later…

Totally hear you on:

“I’m not interested in using any paid plug-in… I’m unlikely to get permission.”

That’s a very real constraint for many teams, so everything above is purely about native Jira.

That said, if at some point you do get the option to try Marketplace apps, tools like Time in Status for Jira by SaaSJet can give you much more precise and flexible lead/cycle time analytics (small disclosure: I’m part of the Time in Status team).

With Time in Status you can, for example:

• See exact time spent in each status for every issue (not just a single total).

• Choose between calendar time vs. working time, and exclude weekends/holidays as needed.

• Get ready-made Lead Time and Cycle Time reports, plus averages by project, assignee, issue type, etc.

• Put those reports on dashboards or export to CSV/Excel for further analysis.

If you ever decide it’s worth exploring, you could:

• Start with the free trial in a test project, or

• Book a short demo call with us – we can walk through your specific use case and help you build a lightweight justification for your decision-makers, so you only push for an app if it clearly adds value.

But no pressure at all – your current question is fully answerable with standard Jira; the app suggestion is just “for later” if the permission situation changes.