How to Enable Time Tracking in Jira with Original Estimate & Time Remain...

Time tracking and story points in Jira often appear side by side, but they are designed for very different purposes. Story points help agile teams measure the relative effort, complexity and uncertainty of work. They are not based on hours and they do not describe how long something will take. Instead they help teams compare tasks, plan sprints more realistically and understand their overall delivery pace. Time tracking, however, is grounded in real hours. It allows teams to estimate the number of hours a task will take, record the time spent and review how actual work compares to the original estimate.

To use time tracking in Jira, the feature must be enabled by a Jira admin or the space owner. In the site settings there is an issues configuration area where time tracking can be turned on for all spaces. Once enabled, new fields become available on every issue. These include original estimate, remaining estimate and time spent. Users can then log work as they complete tasks and adjust remaining hours so the board always shows an accurate picture of progress.

There are meaningful benefits to using time tracking instead of relying only on story points. Time tracking gives teams a clear and detailed view of how hours are used across the project. Managers can see which tasks consume the most time and whether workloads are balanced across team members. It supports billing when hours need to be captured for clients or cost centers. It also helps with forecasting because actual hours reveal how long similar tasks might take in the future. Story points do not provide this level of operational detail.

Time tracking also strengthens capacity planning. When teams know how many hours they have available during a sprint or week, they can allocate work more responsibly. Logging time also highlights bottlenecks, such as when a particular team member is overloaded or when work items take longer than expected. These insights allow teams to adjust processes, training or resource distribution.

Even though story points and time tracking measure different things they can coexist effectively. Story points help with agile planning while time tracking reveals the real effort behind the work. Together they provide a more complete view of both team performance and individual workload.

Cameron McKenzie is an AWS Certified AI Practitioner,Machine Learning Engineer,Solutions Architect and author of many popular books in the software development and Cloud Computing space. His growing YouTube channel has well over 30,000 subscribers.