Time tracking

Learn more about seamless time tracking and its configuration.
Why seamless? There are no extra steps required to start your timers! Simply drag a task to your working column and the timer will start itself, and as soon as you're done - it will stop automatically.

An overview of time tracking capabilities

Kanban Tool revolutionized how great teams track time. Meet seamless time tracking!
Why seamless? You no longer need to click any buttons to start your timers. Simply drag a task to your working column and the timer will start automatically. It’s that simple! You can finally get a deeper insight into how your team spends time without any effort.

For more information on how to configure time tracking to work seamlessly - trigger and pause automatically with card movements - click here.

In case you’d rather operate the timers manually, you can. Simply right-click a task and select Start/Stop Timer.

Your task trackers will display on the right side of the board, in the side-panel, under My work. Upon starting a timer, a task enters the My work feed, and you can see the ongoing time measurement. You can pause and start your timers manually from this side panel. Clicking the checkmark will remove the task from My work.

Kanban Tool - My Work widget

In My work you will find the following information:

  • Task name - click on the name to open your task.
  • Timer - running or paused. When you click on it, a detailed list of all your time entries will open. You can edit the time by pressing a timer entry or remove it by pressing the bin icon.
  • Card color - to easily notice what type of card you are working on.

To learn more about the purpose of My work outside of managing time trackers, please view this page.

You can evaluate how much time is spent on each task with the time report. To view it, go to Tools - Time Report, and access Summary Report and Detailed Report of your time entries. Click here to learn more about the time report.

Seamless time tracking is available with the Enterprise service plan only.

Time tracking configuration

Configuring the time tracking is quite easy, it only requires a few modifications of your board settings.

To set it up, go to Settings - Board Editor and edit the Lane types for each column.
3 lane types will trigger action for your timers.

  • Queue / Waiting - idle columns in which the timer will pause
  • In progress - a working column in which the timer will start
  • Done - pulling cards into this column will stop the timer and remove it from the My Work list.

The columns for which you should set a lane type are the “doing” and “done” ones. Setting a lane type for them will let time tracking run seamlessly - without any additional actions on your part. All you will need to do is move cards through the process and the timer will start and stop itself.

You can apply the In Progress lane type to your “doing” column from the board editor: What does the Lane Type setting control?

Then modify your “done” column in the same fashion, setting its type to Done.

Set all remaining columns to Queue / Waiting if you wish for tasks to pause upon entering them.
You’re now ready to use Kanban Tool’s seamless time tracking!

Note, that you can always start timers manually too, regardless of a task location - just right-click it and select “Start timer”. Or, drag the task to an appropriate column for the timer to start.

How do I edit my time spent?

Forgot to turn off the timer? Need to add an entry for when you were away from the office and forgot to track time with the mobile app? There are two ways to do that.

  1. The My work widget, available on the right side of the board view, displays all recent timers.
    Click on a timer to expand a list of all records for a given task. You can remove any of the time records with the bin icon or edit any of them by clicking on it.
    A date picker window will pop up letting you set the date and the timer’s start and end hours.
    Note: If a task has not been timed by you yet, it will not be listed under My work. To add a time entry to it, right-click the task and choose Add to My Work, then press play on it, so that the timer starts. After that, edit the entry, as described above. Editing tracked time from My Work

  2. You can also edit your timers in the Detailed view of the Time Report. In there you will be able to see all Time Tracking entries.
    If you are an account owner you can modify and remove any entries by clicking the icons to the right of each row.
    If you are a regular user, you will be able to edit and remove your entries only. Editing tracked time from Detailed Time Report

My work widget

The My work widget displays your assigned tasks from across multiple boards. The list stays the same, regardless of which board you’re viewing it on.
You can sort tasks inside the widget by your preference, and open cards directly from it, without moving between different boards.

Please note that My work is only available to the Enterprise plan subscribers.

  1. The widget is displayed on the right-hand side of your Kanban board.
    When someone else assigns a task to you, it will automatically appear on this list. Task Queue View

  2. To manually add tasks to the My work list, right-click a task and select “Add to my work”. My Work for Today - Add to my work You can also use the + icon at the top of the widget to add tasks to the list. When you click +, the all-boards-wide search opens. Clicking on a task card found in this way will add it to the My work list. Adding tasks to My Work with the plus icon

  3. To sort tasks by your preference, use drag-and-drop: Reordering tasks in My Work by drag and drop

  4. The timer on a task starts automatically when you move the task to an In Progress type of column, or when you right-click it and select Start Timer.
    Once you’ve completed a task and moved it to a Done type of column, the timer will stop, and the task will then disappear from My work. You can pause it at any time. Measuring Time on Task To manually remove a task from the My work list, hover the cursor over a queued task, and click the x. Removing a task from My work does not remove it from the board itself - it simply clears if from your My work list.

  5. The My work widget also allows displaying the subtotal amounts of time spent on each task.
    The subtotals are accessible after clicking the time elapsed record. They are also available to view in Time Report, under the Detailed Report view. Show Subtotals for my Time Entry

  6. When a task name font changes to bold, it means the card has received a new comment.

  7. If someone assigns a checklist item to you, the task to which this checklist belongs will be added to your My work list, and will appear in bold, to let you know there’s been a new activity concerning you.

Access your time reports

What’s time tracking for without reports, right? We have two kinds of reports for you: a Summary Report - with a view of important statistics and summaries of the workflow, and a Detailed Report, showing a detailed list of all your records.

Furthermore, you can export your reports to a PDF file and print them out or simply save it to a CSV file. The printer and export buttons are located just below the bar graph in the case of Summary Report and on top of the list in the Detailed Report.

The Summary Report will give you all the significant information about your team’s activity. Summary report

You can filter the report by:

  1. Boards - select boards for which the reports should be generated. You can select as many boards as you want.
  2. Time interval - press the arrows to move your statistics by weeks. Click on the small calendar icon to set your custom time interval.
  3. Users - check the users whose records you want to see in your reports.
  4. Task types - choose the task types that you want to take into consideration.
  5. Tags - filter your reports by tags.
  6. Swimlanes - filter your reports by swimlanes

Bar stats in time report

  • The bar metric will display the total time spent each day on your chosen tasks. Each bar is a separate day and the height indicates the time spent. Summary report - time tracking

  • The breakdown chart will display a pie chart according to your filters. You can group it by users, tasks, current card type, boards, swimlanes, or stages. Those can be further grouped by the same attributes. If you click on an item in the left-hand side list, a list of secondary items will expand. All of that can be sorted by name or duration.
    Grouping by column (stage) is of particular value to your knowledge about the process - with it, you can easily tell in which stage the team is spending the most time. Great information, if you’re considering what specialists you need to hire more of. Time Report Sorted by Column

  • Keep in mind that you can click on each element of a breakdown chart to view a more detailed bar graph.

  • The Detailed Report will display a detailed list of all your timers. Time tracking detailed report

  • You can filter the results in the same way you were able to filter the Summary Report. In the top left, you will see a sum of time spent, the number of tasks, and the total number of entries. Every time you start and pause the timer, you are creating a new entry.

  • Also here, you can edit your entries. If you are an account owner you can modify and remove any entry, by clicking the icons at the right end of each row. If you are just a regular user, you will be able to edit or remove your entries only. Click here to learn more.

  • It’s possible to access the time report directly via a customized URL. Please use the chain link icon below your Report to copy the URL. By changing data inside it (timeframe, report type, users, card types, swimlanes, and board IDs) you can generate a custom report outside of Kanban Tool GUI. Time Report URL

Why are there diagonal lines moving across some tasks?

This is a result of a running timer-indicating feature, which will show these diagonal animations for every task on the board that is currently being timed. The My Work widget

This goes for both the task you and the other team members are timing.
To learn more about using the Time Tracking, please visit this page.