Tracking time from a Jira issue

The Time Trakkr app for Jira puts a small panel on every issue, so you can start a timer or log time against the ticket without opening Time Trakkr. It is an add-on, enabled under Settings → Add-ons.

This is separate from the Jira integration, which links entries to issues from inside Time Trakkr. The two work together: the app creates entries carrying the issue key, and worklog push (if your admin turned it on for the project) mirrors the hours back to Jira.

Installing it

A Jira site administrator installs the app once, for the whole site, using the installation link Time Trakkr provides. Individual users cannot install it themselves.

After that, every issue shows a Time Trakkr section in the right-hand column, alongside Details.

Connecting your account

The first time you open the panel it asks you to connect. Selecting Connect Time Trakkr takes you through two screens: Jira confirms you are about to visit an external site, then Time Trakkr's own approval screen asks which workspace to use and what to allow.

The connection is yours, not your site's. It acts as you, follows your role, and reaches only your tracked time, projects, tasks, reports and Jira issue matching — never invoices, rates or the team directory. Teammates connect their own.

You can take that access back at any time under Developer → Connected apps in Time Trakkr, which ends it immediately.

Disconnecting from the Jira side does not yet revoke it. If you remove the app's access in Jira, the connection here stays live until it expires, within thirty days. To end it now, use Connected apps.

Starting a timer, or logging time

The panel has a project, a task, a note and a duration box. The note is filled in with the issue key and title, so the entry reads properly on a timesheet without you typing anything.

The duration box decides what the button does.

• Leave it empty and the button reads Start timer. A timer runs, exactly as it would in the app.
• Type a duration and it becomes Log time, recording that much against the ticket with no timer at all — for work you finished before you thought to start one.

Durations accept either shape: 1:30 or 1.5 both mean an hour and a half. Something that is not a duration, like 1:75, is refused rather than guessed at.

Once a timer is running the panel shows it, with a Stop timer button. Stopping a timer you left running overnight asks how long you actually worked, exactly as the app does.

The panel also shows how much you have already tracked to the issue.

Why the project is sometimes already filled in

Time Trakkr guesses the project and task from the issue, and tells you which way it managed it:

• your admin's Jira project map — the most reliable, because somebody deliberately paired that Jira project with a Time Trakkr one
• time you have already logged against the same Jira project
• the issue's own project and type, as a last resort

When it cannot guess, the pickers are simply empty and you choose. That is the design rather than a failure: somebody using this for the first time has no history to infer from, and refusing to work until the match is perfect would fail exactly those people.

Projects are listed as client, code and name — "AiEngage — [AIE] Phase 1" — because a bare project name is not enough to choose by when two clients each have a "Phase 1". Archived projects are left out.

If matching is not working

If the panel says it cannot match issues automatically, connect your own Jira account under Integrations in Time Trakkr. That is what lets it read the issue's project and type. Everything else in the panel works without it — you just pick the project yourself.

If the panel says Jira timers are not enabled for your workspace, an admin needs to turn the add-on on under Settings → Add-ons. You can still start timers; only the pre-filling is affected.

The issue's estimate

The panel shows Jira's own time tracking for the ticket, so you can tell from the issue whether the work is on plan:

• Logged in Jira — Jira's own total. Jira works this out from worklogs, so it already includes everything Time Trakkr has sent.
• Original estimate and Remaining — read straight from Jira, in Jira's own wording. "2d" means whatever a working day means on your Jira site, so the panel repeats Jira's figure rather than converting it.
• Progress — how far through the estimate the logged time is, shown only when the issue actually has an estimate.
• Not yet in Jira — time recorded in Time Trakkr that has not reached the issue yet, listed separately.

That last line matters. Jira's total and your unsynced time are never added together: Jira's figure already contains the worklogs we sent, so summing them would double the time. Keeping them apart is what lets you see the gap.

An issue with no estimate shows Not set, not zero, and no progress figure — an unestimated issue is unestimated, not one with a budget of nothing.

Reducing the remaining estimate

An owner or admin can decide whether logging time reduces the issue's remaining estimate, under Settings. It is off by default, because reducing an estimate somebody else set is a change to their planning. Turn it on and Jira's burn-down tracks the time as it is logged.

Time Trakkr never sets the original estimate. That is a statement about scope rather than about time spent, and it stays yours to manage in Jira.

When time has not reached Jira

An entry linked to a Jira issue carries its sync status, so a failure is visible rather than silent:

• Connect your Jira account — the time is recorded in Time Trakkr; it just has nowhere to go until you authorize Jira. Nothing is lost, and nothing is logged under somebody else's name in the meantime.
• Edited in Jira — somebody changed the worklog in Jira, so Time Trakkr did not overwrite it. Decide which version is right and edit the one you want.
• Permission refused — your Jira account cannot log work on that issue. A Jira admin can grant Work On Issues for the project.

Approved and invoiced entries are never changed to match an edit made in Jira: their hours have been signed off or billed here.

What it does not do

• It does not create projects or tasks. Those are set up in Time Trakkr.
• It does not work on Jira Data Center, only Jira Cloud.
• It does not show your teammates' time. The total on the panel is yours; the estimate figures come from Jira and follow Jira's own permissions.
• It does not set the original estimate, only the remaining one, and only when a workspace has switched that on.