How to require time spent entry when moving a task to a different column

[James Poli]

How do I require time spent on a task to be entered when someone moves a task from "To do" or "In Progress" to "Done" or to "Backlog"?

[Jack Brickey]

James, welcome to the Community! First let me ask if you really want to have time logged for each of these transition? To Do --> In Progress - generally speaking time isn't logged until you actually are In Progress. Certainly it makes sense to ask for time logged when moving to Done. However, consider that if the team is working correctly and logging time during the In Progress status then requiring them to log time when they are done might be redundant.

With my preaching out of the way ;-), You can easily require this by editing the workflow and adding in a validation step that there is some amount of time already logged. You can further add a screen to the transition that presents the time logging to the user such that they can log time.

[James Poli]

Thanks for the reply Jack.  As much as I hate to admit that I am a peon, I am just doing as requested by one of the managers I work for.  

What he wants is when we move a task on the Kanban board from 'In Progress' to 

'To do' a pop up prompt to enter time spent on the task.  I think I will need screen caps to communicate this

[Jack Brickey]

James,

as I indicated this is pretty straight forward to do but let me add a bit more color:

• Create a screen that has the Time Tracking included. Let's call it "Log-Time-On-Transition".
• Edit the workflow and for any transition where you want to include the Time Tracking then simple edit the transition (double-click the transition in diagram mode) and add the "Log-Time-On-Transition" screen. NOTE: if there is already a screen defined for the transition then you may wish to simply edit that screen, adding Time Tracking field. However, keep in mind that if that screen is shared w/ other projects/workflows then they too will then have that field displayed on their designated transitions.
• Now IF you want to make this require the user to actually log time then you will also want to add in a validation step on the same transition. But IMO, i would start w/o this and just present the opportunity to have the user log the time. Of course maybe going w/ your manager's wishes should take priority. ;-)

[James Poli]

Thanks Jack, 

I really appreciate the assistance.  Do I not want to add any fields to the LogTime screen I just created?

Regards,

James

[James Poli]

Scratch that.  I re-read it.  Time Tracking field added to screen

[Jack Brickey]

the fields you add need to align w/ what you want the user to be presented w/ so they can fill in the data. For example if the transition is to Done then I would have:

• Resolution - so they have to select the value
• Time Tracking - so they can log time and set Remaining Estimate to 0
• Comment - so they can optionally put in a comment

obviously, if the transition is not to Done (or similar closed status) you should not include the Resolution field since the work is not complete

hope that helps.

[James Poli]

Hello Jack,

Thanks, I was able to do it by editing the workflows and adding transitions where you had mentioned.  At the risk of taxing your patience, how could I require time spent instead of estimates of time remaining?  Is it just a matter of creating a new transition?

Regards,

James

[Jack Brickey]

Hmm, based on your question I gather that the current solution doesn’t allow time logging. I assumed it would. I haven’t tested this yet but may give it a try later. 

[Gregory Fung]

Hello,

now, 5 years later, using the current cloud version, I am also wanting to set up time logging on state transition.  If I add the field "time tracking" in a screen, I also only see time estimate settings, and not work time spent logging fields.  Do you have an updated suggestion?

[Danny]

Two things I have noted while reading this: 

• On the screen that you display during the transition, reference the Log Work field. 

• On the validation step, reference the field Time Spent to check it should be modified during the transition. 

Please note, I am testing with a Jira Cloud instance. 

Let me know if I have misunderstood the requirements. 

Hope this helps,

Danny

[Lucas]

Hey there! Thanks for your help. How would you do that on a new-gen board?