Time Tracking
The Time page of a project and the timer in the sidebar: log a stretch of work on an item by hand or by the clock, with the day, the kind of work, whether it bills and what is left on the item; who may change a log, and what the logs feed.
By the end of this page you will know how time is logged on a work item, by hand on the Time page and by the timer from an item's flyout, what a log carries, who may change or remove one, how a log can say what is left on the item, and how agents log and read the same time.
A time log is a stretch of time a person spent on a work item on one day: how long, what kind of work it was, whether it bills, and a note. Logs are written by the person who worked the time, or for them by someone who may approve time on the project. The timer is the one clock a person may have running: started on an item, it measures the stretch and becomes a log when stopped. Time is the team's record of effort; a client guest never sees it. The timesheets that gather a week's logs for approval, and the reports that split hours by kind and by person, read these logs.
Before you begin
| To | You need |
|---|---|
| See the Time page and an item's time | time-log:view-any; a viewer, an analyst, a tester and a release manager read it |
| Log time and run the timer | time-log:create; the project manager, the developers and the testers by default |
| Change or remove your own log | time-log:update, time-log:delete |
| Log time for someone else, change anyone's log | time-log:approve; the project manager by default |
The page shows the current week when it opens; the week runs Monday to Sunday in your timezone.
Open the page
Time in the project's sidebar, after Sprints, opens the page; the badge on the entry shows the hours logged on the project this week. Above the list, three totals sum the days in view after the filters: the time Logged, how much of it is Billable, and how many Entries there are.
The list shows each log's day, with a badge when the timer or an import wrote it, the person, the item (a link to its flyout on the backlog), the kind of work, how long, whether it bills, a lock when an approved timesheet holds it, and the note. Sort by day, kind, length or billing. The week controls step back and forward a week or return to This Week; the badge beside them says which days are in view. Narrow by words in the note or the item, by person, by kind and by billing; Clear Filters drops those and keeps the days.
An empty week reads No Time Logged with the two ways to fill it: the button above, or the timer on an item.
Log time by hand
Log Time opens the editor:
- Pick the Item the time went into, one of the project's open items, found by its reference or its title.
- Pick the Day; today unless you say otherwise. A day ahead of tomorrow is refused.
- Write How long the way you would say it:
1h 30m,1:30,1.5hor90m; a bare number is minutes. A log runs from one minute to a day. - Pick the Kind of work: development, review, testing, analysis, meeting, support, deployment or other. The reports split hours by it.
- Say whether it is Billable; on by default. The timesheet export keeps billable time apart.
- Add a Note on what was done, if a word helps.
- Under The Item After This, say what is Left on the item when you can, in the same words; it writes the item's remaining estimate and a version of the item. Blank leaves the estimate alone.
- An approver sees Logged for and may pick a member of the team to log on their behalf; everyone else logs their own time.
Log Time writes the log and work_item.time_logged goes out. From an item's flyout, the
Log Time button opens this editor with the item already picked.
Run the timer
Open an item on the backlog; its Time block shows the time logged, how much bills and how many entries, with the last few logs, and Start Timer. Pressing it starts your clock on that item; the sidebar then shows the timer wherever you go, with the item, the minutes so far, Stop and Log and Discard.
Stopping writes a log on the item for today, with the minutes measured rounded up to the minute and capped at a day, as development and billable; change the kind or the note afterwards from the Time page, or stop through the API or an agent to say them at once. Discard drops the timer without writing anything. One timer runs at a time: starting the timer on another item stops the running one first and logs its minutes on the item it ran on.
Change or remove a log
Edit Log in a row's menu opens the editor on it; the item is fixed, the rest can change. The owner changes and removes their own logs with the update and delete permissions; an approver changes and removes anyone's. A log on an approved timesheet is locked: the editor shows it and refuses the save until the timesheet is returned. Delete Log asks first; the item keeps its other time and its estimate as they stand. Activity opens the log's history.
All the fields
What happens next
- A log written by hand, by the timer or by an agent emits
work_item.time_loggedwith the minutes, the day, the kind, whether it bills, the person and the item; a change emitstime_log.updatedand a removaltime_log.deleted. - A log that says what is left on the item writes the item's remaining estimate and a version of the item; the log itself writes no version.
- The log's own history keeps who wrote and changed it, under Activity in its row.
- The project's Time entry in the sidebar shows this week's hours, My Work adds your week across every project, and the item's flyout shows its totals and its last few logs.
- A timesheet gathers a person's week on a project for approval: its logs hold while the approver reads them and are locked once the week is approved.
Heimdall on this page
The page has no assist of its own. Heimdall's panel reads time the way an agent does, so ask it how much time went into an item or a sprint, who logged the most this week, or how the week splits between building, testing and meetings; its answer names the logs.
From the API and MCP
Time logs API
A project's logs with filters and totals, your own, an item's, one log, the writes, and the timer that starts, stops and is dropped.
log_time and list_time_logs
An agent writes the time it spent on an item and reads what was logged, with the totals.
start_timer and stop_timer
An agent measures its work on an item instead of estimating it afterwards.
work_item.time_logged and time_log.* events
A log written on an item, then changed or removed.
Permissions
| Action | Permission |
|---|---|
| See the Time page and an item's time | time-log:view-any; never a client guest |
| Read one log over the API | time-log:view |
| Log time and run the timer | time-log:create |
| Change or remove your own log | time-log:update, time-log:delete; while it is not locked |
| Log for someone else, change anyone's log | time-log:approve |
Frequently asked
I forgot to stop the timer overnight. What was logged? A stopped timer logs at most a day, dated the day you stopped it. Edit the log to the time you really worked, or discard the timer before stopping it and log the stretch by hand.
Can I move a log to another item? No. The item is fixed once the log is written, so a log always belongs to the work it was logged on. Remove the wrong log and write the right one.
Why can I not change a colleague's log?
Changing and removing someone else's time needs time-log:approve, which the project manager
holds by default. Your own logs are yours to change until a timesheet locks them.
Does logging time change the item's estimate? Only when you say what is left. The original estimate stays as it was; the remaining estimate follows the log, and the item keeps a version of that change.
Do guests see time? No. Time is the team's record of effort; a client guest sees the item's record, never the hours behind it.
Related
- Backlog: the items the time goes into, and the Time block in their flyout.
- Timesheets: a week put to its approver, held, locked, reopened and exported.
- Sprints: the runs of work the hours fall into.
- Project settings: the working days and hours the timesheets will count.
- Workspace abilities: the
time-logpermissions by role.
How is this guide?
Last updated on
Definition of Ready and Done
The two checklists every work item carries: the templates the project writes once, the lists each item ticks on its own, and the gates that hold an item out of a sprint or out of Done until the required entries are ticked.
Timesheets
The Timesheets page: a person's week of time across their projects, day by day and item by item; the week put to its approver, held while they read it, locked when approved, reopened when it must change, and exported as a file.