How to create a custom field which will be timestamped when moves to In Progress

[Magdalena Widera]

Hi!

I need to create a custom field to Jira tickets that will be timestamped when it moves from To Do to In Progress column. Hopefully it could be done with an automated workflow. This should help calculating "Lead time for change". Any ideas how to go about doing that? Thank you!! 

[Mehmet A _Bloompeak_ · Accepted solution]

Hi @Magdalena Widera

You can try Status Time Reports app developed by our team. It mainly provides reports and gadgets based on how much time passed in each status.

Here is the online demo link, you can see it in action and try without installing the app.

• This app has a dynamic status grouping feature so that you can generate various valuable reports as time in status, time in assignee, status entry dates and status counts, cycle time and lead time, average/sum reports by any field(e.g. average in progress time by project, average cycle time by issue creation month).

• You can search issues by Project, Issue Type, Status, Assignee, Issue Creation/Resolution Date(and any other Date field) and JQL Query.
• Status durations are calculated according to the working calendar you define. Once you enter your working calendar into the app, it takes your working schedule into account too. That is, "In Progress" time of an issue opened on Friday at 5 PM and closed on Monday at 9 AM, will be a few hours rather than 3 days.
• You can set different duration formats.
• You can export reports in CSV file format and open them in MS Excel.
• You can also add this app as a gadget to your Jira dashboards and reach “Status Time” from Issue Detail page.
• You can enable/disable access to Status Time reports&gadgets and Issue Detail page per project, users, groups or project role.

If you are looking for a free solution, you can try the limited version Status Time Free.

Note: If you are interested in cycle and lead time, you can have a look at the article below.

Cycle Time and Lead Time in Jira: Productivity Measurement with Two Critical Parameters

Hope it helps.

[Emre Toptancı _OBSS_ · Accepted solution]

Hello @Magdalena Widera 

Putting the timestamp of a transition to a custom field should be relatively easy with automation but more is needed to calculate metrics like Lead Time, Cycle Time, etc. Using a marketplace app will provide much more analysis capabilities for you.

I can recommend Time in Status which is built by my team at OBSS. It is available for Jira Server, Cloud, and Data Center. 

Time in Status mainly allows you to see how much time each issue spent on each status and on each assignee. 

       

Time in Status offers two report types for your case:

The first one is Status Duration report (please see the screenshot above) which shows how much time each issue spent on each status. This report type has Consolidated Columns feature. This feature allows you to combine the duration for multiple statuses into a single column and exclude unwanted ones. It is the most flexible way to get any measurement you might want. Measurements like Issue Age, Cycle Time, Lead Time, Resolution Time etc.

As an alternative approach, Time in Status also has Duration Between Statuses report type which shows the duration between two specific statuses. This report type also allows the user the exclude the times for "pause" statuses.

  

These reports show a list of issues by default so you can see the metric values for each issue separately. Also, for all numeric report types, you can calculate averages and sums of those durations grouped by the issue fields you select. For example total cycle time per customer (organization) or average resolution time per sprint, week, month, issuetype, request type, etc. The ability to group by parts of dates (year, month, week, day, hour) or sprints is particularly useful here since it allows you to compare different time periods or see the trend.

Time in Status 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. It supports both Company Managed and Team Managed projects.

Time in Status reports can be accessed through its own reporting page, dashboard gadgets, and issue view screen tabs. All these options can provide both calculated data tables and charts.

And the app has a REST API so you can get the reports from Jira UI or via REST.

  

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 issue type.)
• Export your data as XLS, XLSX, or CSV.
• Access data via REST API. (for integrations)
• Visualize data with various chart types.
• See Time in Status reports on Jira Dashboard gadgets

https://marketplace.atlassian.com/apps/1211756/

EmreT

[Magdalena Widera]

Thank you for getting back to me!!

[Callum Carlile _Automation Consultants_ · Accepted solution]

Hi @Magdalena Widera , welcome to the Atlassian community!

This certainly sounds possible. You would need to create a Timestamp custom field, this could either be a date field or just a simple text field, and then your automation rule would be something like the following:

In your automation rule, the trigger would be Issue Transitioned, and you'd select To Do and In Progress as your from/to statuses.

You would then add any conditions you require (e.g. to only allow it to run under certain conditions, such as issue type)

Then you should add the Edit Issue action and select your timestamp custom field. Within this field, use the smart value of {{now}} which will print the exact date and time of the transition.

If you are using a date or a date+time field, it will display the date or date+time as per your Jira settings. However if you use a text field for the timestamp, you can use examples in this link to further format how your timestamp looks. So for example using {{now}} would print 2023-01-04T17:31:47.5+0000, but if you used the smart value of {{now.mediumDate}} it would look like Jan 4, 2023.

Hope this helps!

[Magdalena Widera]

Hi Callum,

Thank you very much for getting back to me. This seems fairly straight forward so I will have a go at it. 

[Callum Carlile _Automation Consultants_]

No worries, hopefully this should solve your problem but let me know if you need any pointers!