Log time on an issue

Jira Software provides the flexibility to set your estimation and tracking statistics differently, depending on your team's needs. Time tracking features project schedule planning and time expectations management. Thanks to its reports, you can see the original and current time estimates for all the issues, and whether they are ahead or behind the original schedule.

Product teams often need to be able to estimate how long a product will take to deliver from sprint to sprint. As they work through the stories, the team will develop a cadence of completing <x> units of work they had estimated. This is also called velocity. The team has to track the amount of estimation units they've completed from sprint to sprint to know how much they can fit into each future sprint and be confident that all the work will be completed.

You can monitor the tracking time info by just watching the issue time tracking color bars.

Here's how time tracking appears on an issue:

1. Time tracking panel: Shows the time logged so far, and time remaining. Click anywhere on the panel to log time.

Before you begin

Make sure that your Jira admin has enabled time tracking, and that you have the Work on Issues, Delete Work Logs, and Edit Work Logs project permissions. Anyone with the Browse Project permission can view time tracking info on an issue.

Estimate an issue

Before you start work on an issue, you can set a time or other type of estimate to calculate how much work you believe it'll take to resolve it. The field you set your estimate in depends on what's chosen as your estimation method. This will be set to story points (where you only estimate story and epic issue types), original time estimate, issue count, or another custom method.

To set an estimate for an issue:

1. Select the issue and choose the Story points, Original estimate, or custom estimation field.

2. Enter the number of story points or amount of time you believe it'll take to complete work on the issue.

You can use the time tracking report to compare the original and current time estimates for issues in the current project. 

Log time on an issue

Once you've started to work on a specific issue, log time to keep a record of it. This will let you compare your original estimate with how long it actually took to resolve the issue.

1. Open the issue and select ••• > Log work (or click on the time tracking field)

2. Fill in the Log time fields and select Save

   

Edit a time log entry

You can edit your own time log entries if you've been granted the edit own work logs permission. You can also edit other people's time log entries if you've been granted the Edit All Work Logs permission.

1. Open an issue and choose Work log in the activity section at the bottom of the issue.
2. Find the time log entry and choose Edit.
3. Complete any relevant fields and choose Save.

Delete a time log entry

You can delete your own time log entries if you have been granted the Delete Own Work Logs permission. You can also delete other people's time log entries if you've been granted the Delete All Work Logs permission.

1. Open an issue and choose Work log in the activity section at the bottom of the issue.
2. Find the work log entry and choose Delete.

You'll be asked whether you'd like to adjust the remaining time estimate. If you choose to adjust it, you can let Jira automatically adjust the time remaining by adding back the deleted time or set it to another time manually.