Tracking time in Jira shouldn’t feel like a chore. Yet, for many teams, it still does. Messy worklogs, incomplete reports, and scattered data make it hard to get a real sense of where time is going. That’s a problem. Without accurate time tracking, project planning suffers, resources are mismanaged, and billing turns into a guessing game.
Jira has built-in time tracking, but let’s be honest—it’s limited. You can log hours on issues, but not a clear, actionable report without piecing things together. That’s why serious teams turn to Jira timesheet add-ons. The right tool gives you full visibility into where time is spent, so you can optimize work, balance workloads, and make smarter decisions.
Why Time Tracking in Jira Matters
A timesheet is more than just a record of hours worked; it’s an essential tool for monitoring project progress and ensuring efficient resource allocation. It provides a clear breakdown of time spent on tasks, projects, and epics, helping teams maintain accountability and transparency. For companies working with external clients, timesheets ensure accurate billing and cost tracking. Internally, they help managers understand productivity trends and adjust workloads accordingly.
Jira includes a built-in time-tracking feature, allowing users to log work directly within issues. While this feature is useful, it doesn’t provide the detailed timesheet reports that many teams need. Jira’s standard reporting tools only offer a basic overview of logged hours, making it difficult to analyze data across projects or compare work across teams. To gain deeper insights, many teams turn to third-party Jira add-ons that enhance reporting and provide a more comprehensive view of time tracking.
The Limitations of Jira’s Built-In Time Tracking
Jira allows users to log time on individual tasks, but this data is often scattered across multiple issues. Without a centralized timesheet report, managers must manually compile data to see an overview of logged hours. The standard time-tracking report in Jira shows time spent on specific issues but lacks customization, making it difficult to generate detailed reports that align with different team needs.
Another drawback is the inability to track billable versus non-billable hours within Jira natively. For companies that bill clients based on time spent, this limitation can lead to inefficiencies. Additionally, Jira’s default time-tracking reports do not include non-working days such as sick leave, vacations, or company-wide holidays. Without this context, managers may misinterpret team availability and project timelines.
Enhancing Jira Timesheets with ActivityTimeline
To overcome these challenges, many teams rely on Jira Marketplace apps like ActivityTimeline. This tool extends Jira’s time-tracking capabilities by providing a fully customizable timesheet system that integrates seamlessly with Jira. ActivityTimeline enables teams to generate detailed timesheets for individual users, projects, and teams while offering interactive visualizations that simplify analysis.
One of the biggest advantages of ActivityTimeline is its ability to group and filter time logs based on various parameters. Managers can generate reports based on users, projects, or epics, making it easier to assess how time is distributed. The app also includes a visual progress tracker, allowing teams to compare logged hours with required hours to monitor progress in real time.
ActivityTimeline vs. Tempo Timesheets vs. Other Jira Plugins
When it comes to Jira timesheet add-ons, there are plenty of options. But not all of them are built the same.
Tempo Timesheets is one of the most well-known time-tracking plugins for Jira. It offers timesheet reports, approval workflows, and integrations with accounting tools. But it comes with a few downsides. Users frequently complain about a clunky interface, slow performance, and a steep learning curve. Customization options are limited, making it harder to tailor reports to specific needs.
Other Jira timesheet plugins offer solid tracking features but often require additional setup outside of Jira. Some of them rely on browser extensions, which can create inconsistencies in tracking if users forget to log time properly.
Then there’s ActivityTimeline—a resource planning and time-tracking powerhouse built specifically for Jira. It offers interactive visual timesheets, making it easier to track progress at a glance. It also syncs seamlessly with Jira Software and Jira Service Management, pulling in all relevant time data without the extra manual work.
Another major win? With ActivityTimeline, you can generate timesheets for teams, individuals, projects, or even epics. You can track both billable and non-billable hours, account for non-working days, and export reports to Excel with one click. And while some tools focus purely on time tracking, ActivityTimeline brings resource planning into the mix. You don’t just see how much time has been spent—you see who’s available, who’s overbooked, and where time is slipping through the cracks.
Three Types of Timesheet Reports in ActivityTimeline
Not all timesheets are created equal. Some teams need a quick, high-level snapshot of progress, while others require detailed, granular insights for billing and resource allocation. That’s why ActivityTimeline offers three distinct types of timesheet reports, ensuring that every team—whether focused on high-level tracking or deep-dive analytics—gets exactly what they need.
Progress Team Timesheet
The Progress Team Timesheet is for managers who want instant clarity on where time is being spent. No digging through raw data, no endless scrolling—just a clean, visual breakdown of logged hours versus required hours.
If workloads are balanced, you’ll see it immediately. If someone is falling behind, the progress bar will tell you at a glance. And if an overutilized team member is burning out? You’ll spot it before it becomes a bigger issue.
This timesheet is perfect for leaders who need quick answers to questions like:
- Is my team on track to hit deadlines?
- Are workloads evenly distributed?
- Where are we seeing time overruns?
It’s simple, effective, and ideal for keeping projects on schedule without getting lost in the weeds.
Timeline Team Timesheet
For teams juggling multiple projects, the Timeline Team Timesheet is a game-changer. Instead of just seeing total hours, this report lets you slice and dice the data however you need—by user, project, or even epic.
Say you’re managing several initiatives at once. You don’t just want to know that 40 hours were logged last week—you want to see where those hours went. Were they split evenly across projects? Were some tasks sucking up more time than expected? The Timeline Team Timesheet gives you full visibility into the breakdown, making it easy to track team performance across different workstreams.
Even better? It integrates with Jira’s saved filters, meaning you can customize reports to match your exact needs. Whether you want to focus on a specific sprint, department, or client project, the flexibility is there.
Detailed Team Timesheet
Sometimes, a broad overview isn’t enough. When you need to track every single logged hour, the Detailed Team Timesheet delivers.
This report is built for teams that need hard data—whether for client billing, financial forecasting, or internal audits. It breaks down worklogs at the individual level, showing exactly who worked on what, when, and for how long.
Need to separate billable vs. non-billable hours? No problem. Want to export it all to Excel for deeper analysis? That’s built-in.
This timesheet is particularly useful for teams that rely on accurate time tracking for invoicing. With precise data at your fingertips, you can ensure that every billable hour is accounted for, eliminating guesswork and protecting your bottom line.
The Right Timesheet for Every Need
ActivityTimeline isn’t just about tracking time—it’s about making smarter decisions with better data. Whether you need a high-level overview, project-based insights, or a deep audit trail, the right timesheet is just a few clicks away.
Scopes
Scopes provide advanced filtering options for timesheets. Start by selecting a primary filtering criterion from the available options (Team/People, Project, Epic, Category, or Issue). Then, specify the exact parameters for your report.
Except for Jira filters, all criteria support multi-select filtering, allowing you to generate reports for multiple projects, issues, epics, or teams simultaneously.
Templates and Custom Grouping
In the left panel utilize pre-created templates or the 'Custom' tab to group data by any Jira custom field.
Saved dashboards
To save your configured report, click the 'Save Configuration As...' link, enter a title, and then save. All saved reports will be accessible under the 'Timesheet' module in the menu.
To delete a report, navigate to 'Configurations' → 'Dashboards' tab. On this page, you can also share the dashboard you've created with other users or teams.
Why Teams Should Move Beyond Excel Timesheets
Many teams still rely on Excel for timesheet tracking, but this method is prone to errors and inefficiencies. Manually entering time logs can lead to discrepancies, and consolidating data across multiple spreadsheets is time-consuming. Jira’s built-in time-tracking features eliminate some of these issues, but they lack the flexibility and automation that dedicated timesheet tools provide.
By using an advanced timesheet add-on like ActivityTimeline, teams can automate much of the time-tracking process.
- Worklogs are automatically synchronized with Jira, reducing manual data entry and ensuring accuracy.
- Real-time insights allow managers to make informed decisions without having to manually compile reports.
- The ability to track billable and non-billable hours, account for non-working days, and customize reporting further enhances the usefulness of a dedicated timesheet tool.
Approval Process
The Approval Process plays a crucial role in managing the editability of timesheets for regular users. Once a timesheet is approved, it becomes locked and cannot be edited on both the Track and Work pages, ensuring the integrity of the recorded data.
You can enable or disable this option. Disabling the approval workflow will remove the approval requirements and functionalities. You can adjust these settings in the Configurations → Timesheets Config page.
Approval Capabilities:
- Approve Timesheets: Authorized users (Admin, Manager, Power Team Lead, and Team Lead) can approve individual timesheets, locking them from further edits.
- Bulk Approve: This feature allows for the approval of multiple timesheets at once, streamlining the process for large teams or numerous entries.
- View Approved Timesheets: Users can easily filter which timesheets have been approved or not.
- Approval Details: The system records and displays who approved each timesheet, providing transparency and accountability.
Take Control of Time Tracking in Jira
Effective time tracking is essential for project success, and Jira’s built-in tools provide a solid foundation. However, for teams that need more advanced reporting and customization, investing in a dedicated Jira timesheet add-on like ActivityTimeline is a smart choice. With its powerful reporting features, intuitive interface, and seamless Jira integration, ActivityTimeline enables teams to manage their time more efficiently, optimize workloads, and ensure accurate billing.
For teams looking to move beyond basic time tracking, upgrading to a more advanced system can make a significant difference. Whether you need to track billable hours, monitor progress across multiple projects, or ensure better resource allocation, the right timesheet solution can provide the insights you need to work smarter.
