How is time in status calculated when issue is moved to new issue type?

[Melissa Johnson]

I like using the "Time in Status" gadget in Jira and want to confirm my understanding how it calculates when an issue type is changed. 

We have an "Intake" issue type that has a simple workflow - New, In Progress, Wait. My process is:

• someone requests something or I have an idea - create an intake
• once I've fully researched the intake and it's ready for refinement, I move it to Epic issue type

Our Epic issue type has an 'In Progress' status also. As you can guess, 'In Progress' for an intake is different than 'In Progress' for an Epic. The former means 'discovery in progress by PM' where the latter is 'Development in progress'.

I'm really only interested in knowing status once something moves to Epic. When looking at the time in status for epics, will it also add the time in 'In Progress' status while it was an intake issue type or, will it only show the 'In Progress' time while the issue was an Epic issue type?

[Mohamed Benziane · Accepted solution]

Hi,

Welcome to the community

It seems that the first option is the good one. Since the status is the same it wille add the time as long as you doesn't change the status even if you change the issuetype.

[Melissa Johnson]

Thank you for confirming my understanding that 'In Progress' will accumulate, regardless if status type is changed.

[Bill Sheboy]

Hi @Melissa Johnson -- Welcome to the Atlassian Community!

I wonder if changing issue types is hiding part of your workflow.

You seem to describe "intake" (or ideation) as part of the flow of epics, yet do not want to account for that effort in time measures. Two options could be:

• Accept that "intake" is part of the flow for epics, only use epic types, update the workflow, and measure the parts you want in flow.  One advantage of this approach is seeing the full time, from concept-to-cash, for epic work.
• Treat "intake" as a separate thing, and after "intake" completes to done, then create a new epic which starts at that point

Kind regards,
Bill

[Melissa Johnson]

Each of these options has drawbacks but I think I have the solution.

• Counting the 'In Progress' stage for two different activities doesn't allow me to delineate between dev work and PM work.
• Option 2 is what I'm doing now. The challenge I'm having with it is I often provide the person who had the idea with the issue key so they can track progress. They often get confused because my process includes closing the intake when the epic is created. After reading your response, I realized I simply need to change my process to not close the intake until the dev work is done. So thank you!

[Bill Sheboy]

Yes, and...that approach is apparently how the beta for Jira Product Discovery is intended to work:

• create Ideas and manage the portfolio ideation and selection/abandon
• create related epics and stories for delivery
• watch the progress of ideas (through the linked item progress)
• close the idea when the linked items complete