How do you keep Jira time tracking accurate when switching between issues?

Question

Hi everyone,

I'm Kate, and my team and I have been using the TMetric plugin for time tracking with Jira.

Overall, the setup works well, but I'm running into a problem with keeping time entries accurate when people switch between Jira issues throughout the day.

For example, someone might work on one task for 30 minutes, jump to another issue, have a meeting, and then return to the first task. Sometimes the timer doesn't get switched at exactly the right moment, and we end up with time being logged against the wrong issue or needing to correct entries later.

I'm wondering how other teams handle this. Do you have any particular workflow or rules for using TMetric with Jira that help keep time tracking accurate without making everyone spend a lot of time managing timers?

Would be interested to hear how other PMs handle this. Thanks!

Vladimir Letiagin · Answer

What helped me most was making the switch a single action. In the tracker I use (Planim Time, desktop app) there's only one running timer, so hitting play on another task stops the previous one, no separate stop step to forget.

Meetings were the other half of the drift for us. It notices when you've been away from the keyboard and asks what to do with that time: keep it, cut it out, or stop at the moment you left. Idle detection is in the paid tier though. And an end of day look at the day's entries before pushing them to Jira still catches the rest.

Anton from JetHeads_io · Answer

Hey Kate! 👋

The accuracy problem with task-switching is really a manual-overhead problem: every switch is a stop-here, start-there you have to remember, and the one you forget is where the day's numbers drift. The fix is taking that burden off people instead of leaning on discipline.

That's what timers in JetTime (a third-party Jira app) are built for.

* Start a timer right on the Jira issue you're working. Switch to another and — in one-active-timer mode — starting the new one stops the last automatically, so you never double-count or forget to stop
* Genuinely multitasking? Run several timers at once instead
* Timers keep running even if you close the issue, panel, or tab — the time is computed from when you started, not ticked while it's on screen
* Back on an earlier task? Resume its timer where it left off
* When the work's done, log the timer straight into a Jira work log — no end-of-day math or rounding guesswork

👉 JetTime on the Atlassian Marketplace

— Anton, JetTime founder

Laura Campbell · Answer

Hi @Kate Hondarovska , I see that you work for Devart, the company behind TMetric. Please check out the Partner Rules of Engagement https://community.atlassian.com/forums/App-Central-articles/Atlassian-Partners-Rules-of-Engagement/ba-p/2899328 and make sure to update your profile name as well as follow all of the rules. This kind of post generally would be considering violating the rules.