Struggling to figure out exactly where your Jira issues are getting stuck? Measuring how much time your tasks spend in each workflow stage is the ultimate starting point for identifying hidden bottlenecks and improving your team's overall efficiency. While native Jira reporting provides a basic overview, growing agile teams often need dedicated tools to extract deeper, more actionable insights and accurately calculate flow metrics like Cycle Time and Lead Time.

But with so many Atlassian Marketplace apps available, which one should you choose? Which Jira Time in Status plugin is the best for your team? In this guide, we break down a comprehensive comparison matrix comparing Timepiece - Time in Status for Jira by OBSS with top market alternatives: SaaSJet, RVS, and Bloompeak.

Below, we've also compiled a detailed FAQ section to answer your most pressing questions about Jira reporting and time tracking, empowering you to choose the perfect tool to streamline your operations and scale your agile success.

 Core Features

Timepiece - Time in Status by OBSS

Time in Status by SaaSJet

Time in Status Reports by RVS

Status Time Reports by Bloompeak

Why is matters?

Status Duration Report (Time in Status)

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

How much time each issue spent on each status?

Duration Between Statuses Report

Yes

No

Yes

No

How long did it take for each issue to get from status A to status B?How to get metrics like Cycle Time, Lead Time?

Time-Period Reports

Yes

Yes

Yes

No

Get the status/assignee times for each year, month, week, etc.

Assignee Duration Report

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

How much time each issue spent on each assignee?

Scalability & Performance

Up to 1 million issues per report.

3000-issue limit per report.

Uses a pivot table for aggregates (Average/Sum, etc.), which has a 3000-issue limit per report.

1000 issues per report for Aggregate reports.

20000 issues per report for Aggregate reports.

Can the app handle large data sets?

Group Duration Report

Yes

No

No

No

Get Total Assignee Time for User Groups

Transition Count Report

Yes

Yes

Yes

No

How many times each transition was used?

Status Count Report

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

How many times each status was used?

Date Reports 

Yes

Limited

Yes

Limited

Get the dates of each status transition

Any Field Count & Duration Reports

Yes

No

Yes

No

Get the number of changes and Duration for any Custom Field Value

Average / Total / Median Calculations

Yes

Limited with pivot

Yes

Yes

Aggregate data to see the big picture and trend over time.

Detailed Breakdown Reports

Yes

Yes

Yes

No

Drill down into aggregate reports

AI Assistance

Yes

Only calculates flagged time

No

No

Ask Timepiece Assitance about which report to prepare for your business case, or ask the assistant to prepare the report for you.

Scheduled Reports

Yes

No

No

No

Configure schedules to automate report preparation and delivery.

Proactive Alarms

Yes

No

No

No

Configure reports and set thresholds to get notifications when thresholds are breached.

Status Duration Expanded

Yes

No

No

No

Detailed Status Change Log to drill down into the transition history of a single issue.

Custom Calendar

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Create custom business calendars to exclude non-working days and hours

Dashboard Gadget

Yes

Limited - Doesn’t display aggregates (Average/Sum, etc.)

Yes

Yes

Get app reports on your Jira dashboards

Confluence Integration

Yes

Yes

No

No

Get app reports on your Confluence pages

Filter & Sort

Yes

Yes

Yes

Limited

Filter and sort your report based on calculated values

Highlight

Yes

Yes

No

No

Highlight report cells or rows based on thresholds

Charts

Yes

Yes

Yes

No

Use a variety of charts to visualize your report data

Data Bar Visualization

Yes

No

No

No

Visualize values directly on the report output without switching to a chart.

CSV & Excel Exports

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Get the report out as a file

Save & Load Report Parameters

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Save the report configuration for reuse and sharing with others

REST API

Yes

Limited

No

No

Get calculated data through the REST API for integration with external systems

Restrict Data Exporting

Yes

No

No

No

Limit the users who can export data from the app

Jira Cloud Migration Assistant (JCMA) Automation

Yes

No

No

Yes

Use JCMA to migrate from Jira data center to Jira cloud.

Compliance

ISO27001

SOC2

No

IS027001

Jira Time in Status: FAQs Answered

Question: What is Jira Time in Status?
Answers: Time in Status is a highly specialized metric that calculates the exact duration an issue spends within a specific workflow stage, such as "To Do" or "In Progress".

Question: What is Timepiece - Time in Status for Jira?
Answers: Timepiece is an advanced process intelligence tool that can build Time in Status and many other time tracking reports based on your Jira issue histories to help teams identify bottlenecks in their processes and improve efficiency

Question: Can I track Jira Time in Status without a plugin?Answers: The short answer is: technically yes, but it’s painful. Natively tracking "Time in Status" is possible, but since Jira is built as an issue tracker rather than a dedicated business intelligence engine, it comes with major operational hurdles.

Here are the primary native methods and why they usually fall short:

Manual Calculation: You can manually check timestamps in an issue's History tab. However, this data doesn't aggregate automatically, making team-wide reporting completely unscalable.

Database or API Extraction: Jira Server/Data Center users can query the underlying database, while Cloud users can extract raw timestamps via the REST API. Both methods demand dedicated data engineering, are expensive to maintain, and get incredibly complicated when dealing with workflow loops.

Custom Fields & Automation: You can set up complex automation rules paired with custom Date and Number fields to calculate durations as issues transition. But maintaining these fragile scripts across many distinct projects and workflows is highly prone to reporting errors, especially when issues move back and forth between statuses and require summing up multiple iterations. Check out this detailed guide to learn more about it.

Question: What is the native Jira Control Chart?
Answers:The Control Chart shows the Cycle Time and lead time for a product, version, or sprint by mapping the time spent by each issue over a specified period. 

Question: Can the Jira Control Chart exclude non-working days?
Answers: Jira Control Chart can exclude full non-working days (such as weekends and holidays) if configured in your board settings. However, it cannot exclude non-working hours (like night shifts). Its calculations operate on a continuous 24-hour block, meaning elapsed night hours are inherently included in your duration metrics rather than calculating an 8-hour business day.

Question: How can I view data only for completed work in a Control Chart?
Answers: By default, the chart includes work items still moving across the board. To view data for completed work only, you must manually create a Quick Filter with JQL, such as status in (Resolved, Closed). 

Question: What is the difference between worklog-based time tracking and flow-based time tracking?
Answers: Worklog-based time tracking measures human effort (logged hours), while flow-based time tracking measures the chronological time an issue actively spends traversing the entire delivery system. 

Question: What is Cycle Time in Agile?
Answers:Cycle Time traditionally measures the duration from when actual work begins on a task until the work is definitively completed.

Question: What is Lead Time?
Answers:Lead time encompasses the entire customer journey, measuring the comprehensive duration from the initial request creation to final resolution in production.

Question: How can I identify "Sprint Jumpers" in Jira?Answers:By tracking the duration of the "Sprint" custom field, Scrum Masters can precisely quantify sprint instability and identify tasks that continuously carry over across sprints. In that blog post, we provide a step-by-step guide on how to find them.

Question: What is the "Group Duration Report"?
Answers:It is a report that consolidates individual assignee data into broader team-level metrics to analyze department efficiency and capacity.

Question: How do I track the duration of a custom field value in Jira?
Answers: You can use Timepiece’s Any Field Duration report to track the duration each (custom/system) field had each value.

Question: Which Time in Status app provides AI Assistance for Jira time reporting?
Answers: Timepiece features an integrated AI Assistant. Users can skip complex menus and filter by asking for insights in plain language, and the AI instantly configures and builds ready-to-use reports.

Question: Does Timepiece have a REST API?
Answers: Timepiece has a robust REST API for building integrations with external systems such as BI tools.

Question: Does Timepiece support Custom Business Calendars?
Answers: Yes, Timepiece allows organizations to define custom calendars that exclude weekends, holidays, and lunch breaks, ensuring metrics reflect real business hours rather than elapsed time. 

Question: What is an Assignee Duration report?
Answers: It tracks the total assignee time per user, helping to distinguish between time spent in a status and time assigned to a specific person.

Question: Are Timepiece reports interactive on Jira Dashboards?
Answers: Yes, live reports can be visualized using Bar, Pie, Column, and Line charts, and pinned directly to Jira Dashboards for real-time stakeholder visibility. 

Question: Is Timepiece a secure application?
Answers: Yes, Timepiece is a Cloud Fortified app. Its vendor, OBSS, is ISO 27001 certified and participates in bug bounty programs.

Question: How to Track Workload Distribution with Timepiece?
Answers: Timepiece makes it easy to see exactly how work is spread across your team so you can actively prevent employee burnout. Instead of just looking at how long a ticket sits in a general stage like "Code Review," you can use the Assignee Duration Report to track the exact time a task sits with a specific person. If tasks are constantly piling up on one individual's desk, this report highlights the overload immediately. Managers can then use this objective data to step in, redistribute the workload evenly, streamline approval processes, and ensure projects keep moving smoothly. 

Question: How can data aggregation in Timepiece reveal hidden workflow patterns?
Answers: Users can group data by any field, such as Assignee, Issue Type, or Priority, to calculate averages and sums, enabling trend analysis on a daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, and yearly basis. 

Question: How does the native Jira Control Chart (cycle time report) handle items that move into the same status multiple times?
Answer: If a work item transitions in and out of a specific status (such as 'In Progress') more than once, the native Jira report only calculates the duration of the most recent time it was in that status. It does not accumulate the total time across all transitions, which means it will not capture the full cumulative time spent if the issue bounces back and forth.

Question: How do I ensure my Jira time tracking is GDPR-friendly in the EU?
Answers: For agencies and enterprises operating in the EU, data privacy and residency are paramount. Utilizing a secure application like Timepiece - Time in Status for Jira, developed by an ISO 27001-certified vendor that is Cloud Fortified, ensures your process data is handled according to strict security compliance standards.

Try Timepiece - Time in Status for Jira on the Atlassian Marketplace today. You can also book a one-on-one demo with our experts.