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YouTrack records time as work items attached to individual issues. A project administrator turns on time tracking in the project settings. After that, people who work on an issue log a duration, and the project’s spent-time total is calculated from those entries rather than typed in. Reports, dashboard widgets, workflow timers and exports all draw on that record. Time captured by an outside timer app does not enter it unless the app writes into YouTrack’s work items.
How to set up time tracking in a project
JetBrains’ current YouTrack Cloud tutorial describes time tracking as it works in YouTrack Cloud 2026.2. Later releases may change labels or menus, so check the tutorial for your version. The order of the steps matters, because the spent-time field becomes read-only once it is calculated.
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- Before enabling anything, record any spent-time values that people typed in by hand. Converting that field discards them (see the migration section below).
- Open the project’s settings and enable Time Tracking. A project administrator performs this step.
- YouTrack uses period-type fields for the estimate and for spent time. If suitable fields already exist, it uses them. Otherwise it can add them.
- Confirm that the spent-time field is now calculated from work items. It cannot be edited by hand from this point on.
- Set up work types and work-item attributes so entries are categorized from the first day (see the logging section).
Estimates versus spent time
The two fields answer different questions, and both are period-type fields. The estimate is the planned effort for an issue. Spent time is the total of the work items logged against it. Because spent time is calculated, a wrong total is corrected in the work item that holds the wrong duration, not in the total itself.
- Estimate: what the team expects an issue to take.
- Spent time: what has been logged, built from individual work items.
- Comparison: JetBrains positions the two fields together so that estimated and actual effort can be analyzed per project, team, assignee and other criteria.
Logging work: work items, work types and attributes
To record effort, open the issue and add a work item. Enter a duration, choose a work type, and add a description or any attributes that apply. Durations accept abbreviations for minutes, hours, days and weeks.
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Work types
Work types let a team split effort by kind of work, for example development, testing or documentation. Default work types are available, so a team can start without configuring anything.
Custom work-item attributes
Administrators can define work-item attributes globally or per project. A team that needs to record a client, a release or a cost centre on each entry can add that as an attribute, then filter or group reports by it.
Migrating an existing spent-time field
When a manually maintained spent-time field is converted into the calculated field that time tracking uses, the values entered by hand are discarded. JetBrains recommends preserving them first if they need to stay on the record.
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- Export or report the current spent-time values for each issue before reconfiguring the project.
- Enable time tracking and let the field convert.
- Re-enter each preserved value as a work item on its issue. Use a work type or attribute that marks it as migrated history if you need to tell it apart from new entries.
Reports: Time Reports and Timesheet Reports
YouTrack has two report types, and they answer different questions. Choose by the question you are asking.
| Question | Time Report | Timesheet Report |
|---|---|---|
| Main purpose | Totals of how much time was spent, by whom, and on what kind of work | A calendar-style view of how time was allocated |
| Grouping | By categories (work types) or by users | By user or by issue |
| Time periods | Not stated in JetBrains’ summary of the report | Daily, weekly or monthly |
| Scope | One or more projects | Allocations across days, weeks or months for users and issues |
Time Tracking Report widget
A dashboard widget can display either a Time Report or a Timesheet Report. Its settings include project, user, work type and period. Data refreshes every four minutes by default. To change the interval, set a custom refresh rate on the widget.
Work Item Exporter widget
The Work Item Exporter widget downloads spent-time data as CSV or Excel. Use it when figures need to go into a spreadsheet or a payroll or billing process outside YouTrack.
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Recording time automatically with workflows
Workflows can record elapsed time without a person starting and stopping a timer. JetBrains documents two ready-made patterns and says custom workflows can be built when a team’s rules differ.
In Progress Work Timer
This timer records elapsed time from the moment an issue enters the In Progress state until it enters a state marked Resolved. It suits teams whose state changes already reflect when work starts and finishes.
Stopwatch-style Work Timer
This timer works from a Timer field. Time is recorded when a user changes that field to Stop. It gives people explicit control over when a session counts, at the cost of depending on them to stop it.
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Custom workflows
If neither pattern matches how your team works, a custom workflow can encode your own rules for when time is recorded. Its design needs the same care as any other workflow change, and it should be tested on a non-production project first.
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Outside tools fall into two groups. Some write into YouTrack’s native work items. Others keep their own records. The distinction decides whether the time appears in YouTrack’s reports and totals, so confirm it before rolling out a tool.
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Clockify’s support article describes starting and stopping a Clockify timer from a YouTrack issue. Entries are saved in Clockify, and Clockify does not sync with YouTrack’s time-tracking feature. Hours logged that way will not appear in YouTrack’s reports or spent-time totals.
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The article says default setup works on some YouTrack Cloud hostnames. Other hostnames and Server installations may need a custom domain. Its compatibility list names YouTrack 2022.1 and browser-extension versions from 2022, even though the page has been updated more recently. Test the integration against your own YouTrack version before depending on it.
YouTrack Integration plugin for JetBrains IDEs
According to JetBrains’ feature page, this plugin lets users access their assigned tasks and log time from inside JetBrains IDEs. It is a way to enter time from the development environment, and it is separate from the timer apps listed below.
Other listed integrations
JetBrains also lists Harvest, PomoDone, TMetric, Toggl Track, Memtime and TimeCamp as time-tracking integrations. Their described functions differ. Check each one’s current behavior, including whether it writes to YouTrack work items, before adopting it.
Pricing and team size
JetBrains’ pricing page currently says YouTrack is free for teams of up to 10 users, and it describes paid subscriptions for larger teams. Prices depend on billing and team size and change over time. Check the live pricing page for current amounts, and check licensing terms for Cloud and Server deployments separately, since they are licensed differently.
Choosing an approach
| Approach | Where the time is recorded | Visible in YouTrack reports | Best fit |
|---|---|---|---|
| Manual work items | YouTrack work items | Yes | Teams that want totals, work types and attributes in one place |
| In Progress Work Timer | Recorded by a workflow; the destination record is not stated in JetBrains’ summary | Not stated | Teams whose state transitions already mark work |
| Stopwatch-style Work Timer | Recorded by a workflow from a Timer field; the destination record is not stated in JetBrains’ summary | Not stated | Teams that want people to start and stop deliberately |
| Clockify timer | Clockify | No; Clockify does not sync with YouTrack’s time tracking | Teams that need a separate timer and accept that the hours live elsewhere |
| JetBrains IDE plugin | Logged from inside the IDE, per JetBrains’ feature page | Not stated in the feature page | Developers who log time from JetBrains IDEs |
For most teams, start with manual work items and the default work types. Add a workflow timer only when state changes reliably mark the work. Use an outside timer only when its separate records are acceptable.
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