How can I track time issues spend assigned to a team?

[John Price]

I am an admin and we have a group using a basic Jira project (Data Center; also not Service Management) for internal support.  There are 6 teams that can end up working on issues:  Level 1 support, Level 2, CloudOps, etc.  Issues get passed from team to team.

The project owner is trying to figure out how long issues spend assigned to each team.  They have bottlenecks that they can't easily pinpoint.  I'm having trouble coming up with a straightforward solution that doesn't involve additional plugins.  Here are some things I've considered:

1) Using a dummy Advanced Roadmaps Plan to create 6 shared Teams.  Users would then assign to teams as needed.  We have Automation, so we can blank out assignee as it enters other teams' ownership, or whatever similar thing makes sense.  But then ... what gadget do I use to show the time spent assigned to each team?

2) Using a workflow with a Status for each team.  Then I use a Time In Status gadget to show the stats.  What I don't like about this is that I now have a ~10-step workflow that's brittle if different teams get involved.  They also have some approvals which get even more complex.

3) ???

Any ideas?

[Mehmet A _Bloompeak_ · Accepted solution]

Hi @John Price ,

As you mentioned the data you need is available in issue history and you can get it using Jira Rest API. It provides the exact assignee change date and time for each issue. It returns json, then you need to calculate it by coding which parses issue history rest api json for each issue.

Or you can try marketplace apps. We developed Status Time Jira app for this exact need. By default it displays time in status but it can also report assignee time. It has the working hours support per report and report can be used in Jira dashboard. It has top-level menu item and issue detail page right navigation item but both are configurable to show/hide per user/group.

I understand your case about working calendar varying across teams. In this case the only option is to create different reports for each team having each own working calendar. If you need to see the all assignees across all teams in a single report, then you need to export the reports and combine them in excel.

Here is the online demo link, you can see it in action and try. Hope it helps.

[Emre Toptancı _OBSS_ · Accepted solution]

Hello @John Price

I know you said you don't want to do this with a plugin but I've got the perfect app that will solve this. You have to hear this.

Our team at OBSS built Timepiece - Time in Status for Jira 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 each assignee or each group. The Group Duration report of the app is particularly what you are looking for. IT shows the total assignee times for user groups.

You can calculate averages and sums of those durations grouped by the issue fields you select. For example average resolution time per week, month, issuetype etc.

 

Here is a use case article explaining the use of Group Duration report:

https://dev.obss.com.tr/confluence/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=294981990

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.

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.

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

Timepiece - Time in Status for Jira

EmreT

[John Price]

@Emre Toptancı _OBSS_ thanks - I just realized we actually have this for another of our Jira instances.  There are two concerns:

1) Cost - it's reasonably priced, but I have to justify that other teams besides this one would use it.  

2) UI - We have a lot of apps and try to avoid ones that add top-level menu items for all users.  Is that configurable?  

The overall challenge here is in summing time intervals from issue history, which you've obviously done.  If I have an issue with assignment history like:

assigned to John on creation

assigned to Susan after 7 hours with John

assigned to Bob after 4 hours with Susan 

assigned back to John after 3 hours with Bob

6 hours since reassigned to John

I get:

John - 13 hours

Susan - 4 hours

Bob - 3 hours

I don't see a way to do this without your app or writing API/SQL.  This leaves aside how useful it all is considering that working hours vary per team/person.  

My original #2 solution is looking easiest, assuming the teams stay constant.  Workflow like:

New
Level 1 Support

Level 2 Support

CloudOps

Waiting for User

Done

with free movement between statuses.  This lets me just use native widgets to show time spent in each status, and thus with each team.

[Emre Toptancı _OBSS_]

Hello @John Price ,

Time in Status has its own permission settings that can be configured by your Jira admin. Only the users that have permission to use Time in Status will be seeing the Time in Status menu item in the top menu. (This doesn't affect licensing though. The Atlassian license model still forces all app licenses to match the Jira user tier.)

You are correct, trying to solve this using separate statuses (without an app like Time in Status) becomes exponentially more complex with each team and each additional need in the workflow. Even worse, built-in gadgets (like Average Time in Status) have very very VERY limited configuration options. They only show resolved issues, only give the daily/weekly/etc overall average (no seeing individual issues or no custom grouping), don't have custom calendar support, don't have file export or REST API, etc.

I hope you can justify the cost of using Time in Status and all your teams can benefit from it. You can always reach us for support. 

[John Price]

thanks - knowing about the permissioning helps.  I'll post back with what we decide!