Automatically log work spent in a specific status

Use case

In this use case JWT is going to automatically log work as soon as an issue enters and leaves a specific status.

As soon as a user executes the Start Progress transition, we're starting our work. As soon as the user executes the Stop Progress transition, we stop our work and automatically log the time we worked on the issue.

🗒️ Prerequisites

In order to make this use case work, we need to create one custom fields to store the time we entered the specific status.

Set up the custom field

Create a date time picker custom field

Name: Work Start Time

Go to the Field configuration and set the visibility of the created custom field to hidden.

⚒️ Configuration

Set up the Start Progress transition

Add the Update or copy field values post function to the Start Progress transition.

Target issue

Choose Current issue

Fields

Field

Choose Work Start Time

Value

Choose Set field value manually

Expression

Enter the following expression:

{system.currentDateTime}

Set up the Stop Progress transition

Add the Log work post function to the Stop Progress transition.

Target issue

Choose Current issue

Time spent

Enter the following expression:

({system.currentDateTime} - {issue.cfnnnnn}) / {MINUTE}

cfnnnnn is the field code for the Work Start Time custom field we've previously created.

Update the field code to the corresponding field code on your instance!

Starting date-time

Enter the following expression:

{issue.cfnnnnn}

cfnnnnn is the field code for the Work Start Time custom field we've previously created.

Update the field code to the corresponding field code on your instance!

Work description

You can enter a comment like this:

Work started at %{issue.cfnnnnn} and stopped at %{system.currentDateTime}.

cfnnnnn is the field code for the Work Start Time custom field we've previously created.

Update the field code to the corresponding field code on your instance!

Additional options

Remaining estimate

Choose Auto adjustment

Alternative implementation

In the current implementation, the time between entering and leaving the In Progress status is being tracked as working time. So also non-working time will be logged (e.g. from 5pm to 8am the other day) even though nobody might be working on the ticket.

For this, a JWT calendar could be used. This way only the actual work time will be considered.

Create a new calendar

Head over to the Jira Administration → Manage apps → Jira Workflow Toolbox → Calendars.

Hit Add calendar in the upper right corner.

Name

Enter an appropriate name. For this use case we're going to use the name working-hours.

Specification

Enter the following schedule:

MON-FRI{
   08:00-17:00;
}

Update the Log work configuration from above

Once the calendar is created, we have to update the configuration of the Log Work post function from above.

We only need to update the Time spent expression.

Time spent

Enter the following expression:

timeDifference({system.currentDateTime}, {issue.cfnnnnn}, "working-hours", LOCAL) / {MINUTE}

cfnnnnn is the field code for the Work Start Time custom field we've previously created.

Update the field code to the corresponding field code on your instance!

For this expression the timeDifference() function was used.

📷 Screenshots

📚 Related use cases

Use case	Workflow function	Parser functions
Add percentaged profit margin when closing issue	Log work
Automatically log work spent in a specific status	Log work	timeDifference()
Log absence time on another issue	Log work	stringToDate()