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Configuring time tracking

Time tracking data can help you monitor the progress of a release, iteration, or project and capture information for planning and analysis. For example, time tracking data can help you identify the percentage of work complete on a feature, potential schedule overruns, progress on tasks by team members, and the amount of time spent each day on specific items for resource allocation and billing purposes.

Users enter time tracking data when they perform activities on items, such as fixing issues. TestTrack groups time tracking values and calculates totals to provide up-to-date information for a project, a segment of a project, or specific items. You can choose the values you want to use to report time tracking totals for issues, requirements, requirement documents, test cases, and test runs.

TestTrack can capture and calculate the following time tracking data:

• Estimated hours—The approximate number of total hours it should take to complete an activity.
• Actual hours—The actual number of hours it takes to complete an activity.
• Remaining hours—The estimated number of hours it should take to complete an activity from its current state.

Note: Time tracking can also be used to track story points used in Agile development.

Capturing time tracking data

Time tracking values are captured in workflow event dialog boxes, such as the Estimate dialog box. You can use built-in time tracking fields or event custom fields to capture time tracking values based on how you want to report the data.

Built-in workflow event time tracking field

Events have a built-in time tracking field that you can enable. For example, the Estimate event in the default requirement workflow has an Estimated Time field used for time tracking.

To enable the built-in time tracking field, select the Display the time tracking field using option on the Details tab in the Add Event or Edit Event dialog box. See Adding events.

Workflow event custom fields

You can add numeric custom fields to events to capture time tracking values. For example, the Enter Work event in the default workflows has a Remaining Time decimal custom field used for time tracking.

To add custom fields to an event, click the Custom Fields tab in the Add Event or Edit Event dialog box. See Adding events.

Choosing a time tracking field type

The type of time tracking field you should use depends on how you want to calculate values and if an event can be entered multiple times for an item.

The built-in time tracking field provides options for calculating time tracking values. You can use:

• The sum of all time tracking values entered for all instances of an event for an item. For example, if the Fix event is added to an issue twice and 2 and 6 are entered in the Effort field, the actual hours total is 8.
• The time tracking value entered for the last instance of the event for an item. For example, if the Estimate event is added to an issue twice and 2 and 6 are entered in the Effort field, the actual hours total is 6.

Custom time tracking fields always use the time tracking value from the last instance of the event entered for the item.

If items can have multiple instances of the same event, use the built-in time tracking field so you can choose how to calculate the total hours. This is especially important for reporting actual hours because you want a sum of values from all instances of an event to calculate an accurate total.

If items can only have one instance of an event, you can use either the built-in field or event custom fields for time tracking. You can use a combination of the built-in field and custom fields in one event to capture multiple time tracking values for the activity.

Note: You can use integer custom fields on the Add or Edit item dialog boxes or integer event fields to capture story points values.

Selecting fields to include in time tracking totals

Regardless of the type of time tracking fields you use, you need to select the fields you want to use to calculate actual hours, estimated hours, remaining hours, and story points. You can select the fields to use for each item type in project options.

You can select one field or a combination of fields for each calculated value. If multiple fields are selected, the sum of those field values is used as the total. See Setting time tracking options.

Time tracking is automatically configured in new projects based on the default workflows. See Default time tracking fields. If you modify the default workflows, review the time tracking settings to make they are configured correctly.

Additional time tracking values

TestTrack also automatically calculates additional values based on the estimated, actual, and remaining hours values:

• Percent done—The percentage of work completed compared to the remaining hours reported. For example, if the actual hours value for a test case is 5, the estimated hours value is 9, and the remaining hours value is 4, the percent complete value is 56%.
• Variance—The difference between the number of actual hours and remaining hours compared to the estimated hours. For example, if the actual hours value for a test case is 5, the remaining hours value is 2, and the estimated hours value is 8, the variance value is -1. A positive variance indicates an activity is taking more time to complete than the estimate and a negative variance indicates an activity is taking less time to complete.

Viewing time tracking data

There are several areas in TestTrack where you can view time tracking data. Following are some of the common areas to view this data.

List windows

You can add columns to list windows to display any of the available time tracking values for each item. The Percent Complete column displays a graphical progress bar for each item. You can also display numeric column totals in list windows to see the calculated totals for each column. See Changing list window columns and fonts.

Reports

Several built-in reports include estimated hours, actual hours, remaining hours, percent done, variance, and story points values. In reports, time tracking fields can be summed across all item types to give you a complete picture of the effort required to complete work. See Report types. Specifically, time tracking reports provide information that helps with tracking and communicating actual work performed by items and users. See Time tracking reports.

You can also create live charts to monitor progress in real time from the Folders list window or a standalone window. See Creating live charts.

Work Items tab

This tab displays events with time tracking fields that were entered for a specific item. The estimated, actual, and remaining work for an item, and the variance between the estimated and actual hours, is displayed. See Viewing work item history.