Is there a solution to track hours spent per task that aggregates up to an Epic?

[Maranda Zwieschowski]

Our executive team wants to get at hours spent on a project, which story points don't translate to directly.  Does anyone know of any resources or methods for tracking hours spent per task, that will aggregate to an Epic level, this isn't just my manual hour logging per task? The manual tracking is a lot of overhead; if there's an app or plug in that offers automation based on state transitions, or one that pulls from Github as well, that'd be the perfect solution.  

[Emre Toptancı _OBSS_ · Accepted solution]

Hello @Maranda Zwieschowski ,

First let me tell you that I agree with other people who ansered this question. The healthy way to get this data would be to log time on issues.

Having said that, the next best thing would be to see how much time each issue spent on each status and aggregate this per Epic.

For a ready built solution that offers great flexibility and details, our team at OBSS built Time in Status app for this exact need. It is available for Jira Server, Cloud and Data Center.

Time in Status allows you to see how much time each issue spent on each status or assigned to each assignee as well as entry/exit dates for all statuses. You can calculate averages and sums of those durations and count grouped by issue fields you select. (For example see the total InProgress time per Epic). You can also combine statuses into consolidated columns to see metrics like Ticket Age, Cycle Time or Lead Time.

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.

The app has Custom calendar support which means you can get your reports based on a 24/7 calendar or your custom business calendar. (This one is important because a 24/7 calendar in most cases shows misleading data. For example an issue created at 16:00 on Friday and was resolved at 09:00 on next Monday seems to stay open for 2,5 days but in terms of business hours, it is only a few hours. You can see this using Time in Status by OBSS.)

Using Time in Status you can:

• See how much time each issue spent on each status, assignee, user group and also see dates of status transitions.
• Calculate averages and sums of those durations grouped by issue fields you select. (For example see average InProgress time per project and per issuetype.)
• Export your data as XLS, XLSX or CSV.
• Access data via REST API.
• Visualize data with various chart types.

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EmreT

[Mariana_Pryshliak_Saasjet · Accepted solution]

Hello @Maranda Zwieschowski 

Time in Status for Jira Cloud can be helpful in your case. This add-on calculates the time an issue has been spent in each status, and Total time in status (Issue Age) too. 

You can try and assure whether it helps you.

I hope it helps.

Best regards, Mariana.

[Marlene Kegel - codefortynine · Accepted solution]

Hi @Maranda Zwieschowski ,

With our Jira cloud app Dynamic Fields for Jira you could do both:

• Aggregate worklogs in epics
• Sum-up time spent between transitions

Don't hesitate to contact our support, if you need help in creating your custom dynamic field. We're always happy to help.

[tokcum · Accepted solution]

Hi Maranda,

I can confirm what @Fazila Ashraf said. From my experiences attempts to capture the time automatically from transitions through the workflows fails because it requires to much discipline in the daily hustle and bustle.

I use the add-on Epic SumUp to aggregate work logged on different levels.

Kind regards,

Tobias

[Fazila Ashraf · Accepted solution]

@Maranda Zwieschowski  , with my experience, manual logging would be more accurate than capturing time between transitions. 

In the manual logging, the actual 'effort' spent can be entered. With the time between transitions, it is just about the button clicks. Many other usecases like parallel tasks, leaving home after incomplete work etc cannot be addressed.

Regarding rolling up time spent to epic, we use structure plugin and it has the option to aggregate and display the time spent on the higher level in the hierarchy.