Every team needs a timetracker. At its worst, time tracking is viewed as a “necessary evil,“ but time tracking can also be a source of valuable data. The trick is to make time tracking as effortless as possible.
Why You Need a Jira Timetracker
Doesn’t Jira already have a built-in timetracker?
If your teams work in Jira then it makes sense for them to track their time there. Jira does have built-in time tracking functionality. That functionality is, however, severely limited.
You can configure working hours and days, how time is displayed and your default time unit, but there’s no way to add fields to native Jira worklogs.
Reporting is also fairly narrow, with Jira’s native timetracker function supporting built-in agile reports such as Sprint burndown charts, Velocity report, and Cumulative flow diagrams. You can’t slice and dice your time tracking data, to answer specific questions about where team members are spending their time. Nor can you easily export worklogs to Excel to create custom reports.
Consider the native Jira timetracker Workload report:
vs a report created by the Clockwork for Jira app:
What to look for in a Jira Timetracker App
The Atlassian Marketplace offers multiple Jira time tracking apps. So how do you choose the best one for your team? Here are some things to look for when choosing a Jira timetracker app:
How Does the Jira Timetracker App Create Worklogs ?
Timetrackers store worklogs that include – at a minimum – the date, user, Jira issue, and amount of time worked. Jira time tracker apps will have one or more ways of creating those worklogs, which may include:
- Manual creation (clicking a button to open the worklog screen)
- Starting and stopping timers on Jira issues
- Integrating with events on Google or Outlook calendars
- Automatically capturing time based on the user’s working hours and issue status
Using a timetracker app that supports multiple methods for creating worklogs will reduce friction and increase adoption by allowing each team member to use their preferred time tracking method. You’ll also want to ensure that the app allows you to configure your worklogs to capture whatever data you need (for example billable/nonbillable hours, CAPEX vs OPEX, etc.).
What Reports Does the Jira Timetracker Support ?
As mentioned above, reporting is not the long suit of Jira’s native time tracking. Yet Jira timetracker reports can provide insights for better project planning, expedite billing, understand your teams' capacity and manage payroll. Think about your use cases and look for an app that provides the timetracker reports you need.
How Does the Timetracker Integrate with Jira ?
Various time tracker apps have different levels of integration with Jira. Consider whether the time tracker stores data outside of Jira, if it requires an external account, and if it integrates with other Jira functionality.
Why Clockwork Pro is the Best Timetracker for Jira
Among the many Jira timetracker apps in the Atlassian Marketplace, Clockwork Pro stands out as the only option that offers no-touch time tracking. That means your team can focus on their work without spending time tracking time. Of course, Clockwork also supports other time capture methods like calendar integration, timers on issues and manually created worklogs – but automatic time tracking means you always have up-to-date timetracker data with no effort from your team.
Clockwork also provides robust timesheet reporting which allow you to:
- Filter and/or breakdown timesheets by virtually any field or worklog attribute
- Compare Estimated to Actuals
- Create custom exports to Excel
- Quickly see an overtime worked
- View a report or worklog summary on your Jira dashboard
- Instantly convert a timesheet report into a cost tracking report (for easy billing)
Clockwork’s timetracker data is fully and automatically synced with Jira’s native worklogs, enabling advanced functionality such as using JQL to search for issues with running timers, showing accumulated time on Jira board cards, and preventing a transition unless time has been logged on the issue. It also means that no external-to-Jira accounts are required and that your historic timetracking data will remain available in Jira if you choose to change timetrackers later.
Finally, Clockwork comes from a vendor you can trust. It’s Cloud Fortified and backed by excellent support.
