New in Timepiece: Custom Columns for Any Field Reports

There is now a Columns panel in Timepiece's Any Field Reports (Duration, Count, and Time-Period). With this new feature, you now can combine many field values into a single Consolidated Column, and you have complete control over which field values appear as columns.

If you have previously grouped statuses into a real Cycle Time or Lead Time metrics using Consolidated Columns, this is the same concept, but it now applies to any custom field that your report is based on, not just status.

The Any Field Duration, Any Field Count, and Any Field Duration Per Time-Period reports have a new panel that defines which values show up as columns. A report's columns can be built from single field values or from combinations of them because Any Field Reports already allow you to select multiple History Fields at once. Rather than letting Timepiece make that decision for you, you make that choice directly in the Columns panel.

What are Consolidated Columns?

A Consolidated Column combines several columns into one, and shows their combined duration as a single value.

You can add more than one Consolidated Column to the same report, and the same source column can be part of more than one group. If you're tracking a "Vendor" field with values like Vendor 1 through Vendor 4, you could group Vendor 1 and Vendor 2 under "Software Vendors," and Vendor 3 and Vendor 4 under "Service Vendors," in the same report.

Timepiece's function isn't new at all. Teams use the Consolidated Columns in Status Duration reports to combine statuses such as "In Progress" and "In Review" into a single Cycle Time figure. The same grouping is now applicable to Any Field Reports, which means it doesn't only apply to workflow status but also to any custom field you're reporting on.

How do Do Group Block Reason Durations into One Column?

Open the History Field panel, select Block Reason, then use Add Consolidated Column in the Columns panel to group the reasons you want combined. Here's the full sequence:

• Open the History Field panel
• Select Block Reason as the History Field
• Open the Columns panel
• Click Add Consolidated Column
• Select the block reason columns to group
• Enter a name for the consolidated column
• Click Apply

The consolidated column then shows the combined duration of the selected block reasons as one value. That's useful when you care about total blocked time across a group of reasons, and don't need to compare each reason on its own.

The same steps work for any History Field, not just Block Reason. Group Vendor values, Sprint values, or any custom field your team tracks, the same way.

Pro Tip: Columns panel doesn't just decide which values show up; it also lets you set the order they appear in. Priority is a good example: by default, a report might list High, Low, Medium, since that follows whatever order the field's values are set to in Jira, not necessarily how you'd want to read them. With the Columns panel, you can rearrange that to High, Medium, Low, or whatever order actually matches how your team reads the data.

What "Others" Column Do?

It groups every value you didn't select into a single "Others" column, so nothing quietly disappears from the report without you knowing. When you activate the "Put unselected values into an Others column" option, all of the durations that you did not select are aggregated and displayed under Others. A similar but distinct function is carried out by the yellow caution icon, which indicates which field values contain data but aren't now selected so you can see what's missing either way. If you disable Others, such values are completely removed from the report.

What Happens If You Don’t Select Any Columns?

Nothing is blank. Timepiece displays each field value on the current page of data as a separate column and treats all available field values as selected if neither columns nor consolidated columns are selected. What you see is limited by the Columns panel. To obtain a functional report, no setup is necessary.

To learn more about Timepiece - Time in Status for Jira and start a 30-day free trial, visit its Atlassian Marketplace page. If you have some questions and need a free consultancy meeting with our expert, book a demo.