What is Time Tracking in YouTrack?

The Time Tracking feature in YouTrack is used to monitor how much time team members spend on individual tasks.

Basics

Logging time:

You can log “work items” on issues (tasks), which record who worked on them, when, and for how long.

Manual and automated options:

• You can enter time manually (e.g., 2h 30m)
• It can also be automated using workflows or integrations (e.g., timer apps)

Estimated vs. actual time:

• Estimation – how much time you expect the task to take
• Spent time – how much time was actually used
  → These can be compared

Work item properties:
A time entry can include:

• duration
• date
• user
• description (e.g., “bug fix”, “code review”)
• optionally, a type (e.g., Development, Research)

What it’s used for

• Planning and capacity management
• Transparency in projects
• Reporting (e.g., weekly summaries)
• Billing or accounting (if needed)

Additional features

• Weekly work expectations can be set (e.g., 40 hours)
• Reports can be generated (e.g., by user, by project)
• Can be automated with workflows (e.g., notifications if logged time is too low)

👉 Shows what the time was spent on.

• Grouped by categories (e.g. Development, Documentation)
• You can see how much time went to each type of work
• Example:
  • Development: 40h
  • Documentation: 32h
  • No type: 48h (not categorized)

👉 Shows who worked on what.

• Grouped by people (assignee)
• Under each person, tasks (issues) are listed
• Example:
  • Developer 1: 48h (on 2 tasks)
  • QA engineer: 24h (on 1 task)