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2019.2
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  1. Projects
  2. Enable Time Tracking

Enable Time Tracking

Last modified: 17 December 2019

When you enable the Time Tracking feature, you can work with the following tools in your project:

  • Your team can add work items to issues.

  • YouTrack calculates the time spent and progress for each issue.

  • You can create time reports.

Spent Time Calculations

The amount of time spent that is entered in each work item is added to a field that stores a period type. You choose which field stores this data for each project. This field records the total amount of time that is reported for all work items in the issue. You cannot update this value manually — only by adding or editing work items.

Time Left and Overdue Estimations

The amount that is recorded as spent time is compared to the value that is stored in another period type field that stores estimations. The field that stores the estimation presents this calculation in a progress indicator. The amount of spent time that does not exceed the original estimation is drawn in green. The missing piece of the pie represents the amount of time that is left over. The time left and estimation are displayed in a tooltip when you move the pointer over the progress indicator.

Time tracking spent time left

When the spent time exceeds the original estimation, the progress indicator is drawn as a red circle. The tooltip displays the amount of spent time that exceeds the original estimation.

Time tracking spent time overdue

Synchronization Between Tasks and Subtasks

For issues that are linked as the parent for other issues, YouTrack automatically calculates the estimation and spent time as the sum of values that are added to each subtask.

Time tracking parent issue

  • If you add work items to a parent task, the spent time in the parent task includes spent time from work items that are added to the parent task plus the total spent time for each of its subtasks. For this reason, we generally recommend that you avoid adding work items to parent tasks.

  • If you change the estimation for a parent task, the synchronization between the parent task and its subtasks is broken. To restore the synchronization and calculate the estimation for the parent task automatically, set the estimation value in the parent task to the total estimation for each of its subtasks.

Set Up Time Tracking

Time tracking is enabled on a per-project basis. When the Time Tracking feature is enabled and configured in your project, the following changes are applied to all issues:

  • An Estimation field with a dynamic progress indicator is added.

  • A Spent time field, which is not available for manual editing is added.

  • An additional option for adding spent time in work items is added to issue views for your project.

    Add spent time

warning

When you enable time tracking, the field that you select to store spent time is converted to a calculated field that cannot be updated manually. All values that are currently stored in this field are discarded.

If you want to preserve spent time that was entered manually, generate a report that includes the values that are stored for each issue and add these values as work items when time tracking is enabled.

To enable time tracking in your project:

tip

Requires permissions: Update Project

  1. Click the Projects link in the main navigation.

  2. Select the project where you want to enable time tracking.

  3. Click the Edit project link.

  4. Select the Time Tracking tab.

  5. Select the Enable time tracking checkbox.

    Additional settings for time tracking configuration are shown.

    Time tracking settings in project

    YouTrack checks for period-type fields with the names Estimation and Spent Time.

    note

    You can skip this step and create and configure fields later. Before you can use time tracking in your project, you must configure these fields in your project.

    The Estimation and Spent time must be configured as period-type fields.

    • If these fields exist, you can select which field to use for estimations and time spent. If these field are not currently attached to the project, they are added automatically.

    • If these fields do not exist, YouTrack asks you to create them.

  6. For the Estimate field setting, select an existing field from the drop-down list or click the Create and attach "Estimation" field link.

  7. For the Time spent field setting, select an existing field from the drop-down list or click the Create and attach "Spent time" field link.

    This field is converted to store a calculated value and can no longer be updated manually. Values that are stored in this field are discarded.

Define Work Item Types

In addition to the default work item types that are pre-defined in YouTrack, an administrator can add work item types at the global level. If the default work item types match the categories of work that you want to track, you can start using time tracking in your project. Otherwise, you can modify the list of work items on a per-project basis.

To customize the work item types for your project:

tip

Requires permissions: Update Not Own Work Item

  1. Select all of the work item types that you don't want to use and click the Remove icon.

    • The work item types are removed from your project, but are still available for other projects in YouTrack.

  2. Click the Add work item type to the project button.

    Add work item type to project

  3. Add a work item to your project:

    • To add an existing work item type, select it from the drop-down list.

    • To add a new work item type, enter a name in the input field and select the Create new work item option.

    Create new work item type

  4. Repeat from step 2 until you have added all of the work item types that you want to use in your project.

    Work item types added