Time in Status: Built-in Jira functionality VS add-ons

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How long has each task been spent in a particular work status? The answer to this question helps to understand what process is the most time- and resource-consuming. It’s a crucial point when evaluating your workflow. There are different options to get time in status in Jira. Let’s compare what built-in options and add-ons from the Marketplace offer.

How to get time in status in Jira

Before you understand what works the best for you, learn which features you can turn ON or OFF. There are few options to measure the time spent without tracking.

Days in column

You can enable the Days in column option to display time in status. The number of dots on the card shows how long an issue has been in the column. To turn it on, you need to have Jira-administrator or project-administrator access.

Pros:  This can aid in the detection of issues that take a long time to resolve.

Cons: It shows the days, regardless of the hour. Weekends are not excluded. You should also be aware of the number hidden behind the dots. For example, 1 red dot equals 5 days; 2 red dots equals 8 days.

The Average time in status gadget

You can discover some gadgets that count average metrics on the dashboard. Use the "Add gadget" button in the dashboard menu.

This graph depicts the average time spent in status for all resolved issues for a particular period.

Pros: Easy-to-catch time over limits. Visual representation of average time spent in status for chosen filter and period.

Cons: The gadget displays only the time in status for issues that have been resolved. In addition, users get inaccurate results when the chart returns the issues that haven’t not in the resolved state.

Time in Status add-ons: when to use

When analyzing the time in status for your team or project, you can look for advanced reports and solutions. Let's figure out the use cases when you may need them.

1. If you need a specific time, not only a visual representation of how long it took to finish a task. For example, how long an issue was in progress or review status, e.g., 1d 4h 32m.
2. To get information about the total time spent in all columns. 
3. If you need average time in status report for unresolved issues as well as for resolved ones.
4. If you need a calendar option to exclude non-working hours or weekends.
5. If you'd like to identify Cycle (Lead) time bottlenecks.
6. To dig deeper into the monitoring of different statuses by using the Pivot table.
7. If you need to export time in status reports to various analytical systems.

That's not all the cases, but the most common ones. You can find the time in status tools in the Atlassian Marketplace.

Time in Status for Jira Cloud overview

Time in Status for Jira Cloud is developed to help managers and teams in the report customization and get additional insights about the time spent. The add-on includes such useful options: 7 main types of reports, flexible pivot setup, graphical data representation, gadget on the Jira dashboard, and much more.

Here is a comparison of Jira's functionality and Time in Status for Jira Cloud.

Functionality	Built-in time in status options	Time in Status for Jira Cloud
Process blockage detection	Yes, with days in columns	Yes
Time format	Days only represented by dots	Different formats, incl. Days, hours and minutes (1d 4h 32m)
Calendar configuration	No	Yes
Pivot table	No	Yes
Cycle and lead time	Yes, with Contol Chart	Yes, with Status groups
Gadget	Only for Average time in status and only for resolved issues	Time in Status Assignee Time  Average Time  Status Entrance Date  Time in Status per Date  Status Count  Transition Count
Export	No	Yes
Sharing in analytical systems	No	Yes

Check out the use cases to find more info about how you can use Time in Status for Jira.