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Tracking: hours, budgets and estimates

This article shows you how to read the Tracking page: how your team's tasks are moving, how logged hours compare with approved hours, and how good your estimates are.

Open the page​

In the sidebar, click Tracking.

Managers see every task in the workspace. Members can open the page too, but they only see tasks they created or are assigned to.

Screenshot

The top of the Tracking page, with the filter bar, the five summary cards and the four charts below.

The page has two parts, each with its own filters: charts and estimates at the top, and hours per task at the bottom.

Filter the top part​

The filter bar at the top controls the summary cards, the charts and the estimate sections:

  • Date range: This Week, Last Week, This Month, Last Month, This Quarter, Last 3 Months, All Time or Custom Range. A task counts if it was created or completed in that range.
  • Status: pick which statuses to include.
  • Assignee: pick one or more people, or click Assigned to me.
  • All Departments and All Types: narrow by department or task type.
  • The sprint picker: show only one sprint's tasks.

To keep a set of filters, click Saved Filters at the top right, then Save Current Filters, give it a name and click Save Filter.

Summary cards​

  • Total Tasks: tasks that match your filters.
  • Completed: tasks completed within the date range.
  • Completion Rate: completed tasks as a share of the total.
  • Avg Cycle Time: average days from approval to completion.
  • Avg Est. Variance: on completed tasks, the average difference between logged hours and approved hours. Red with a plus sign means tasks ran over.

Charts​

  • Burndown: how many tasks are still open (Remaining) and how many are done (Completed) over the range.
  • Velocity: tasks completed each week. A dashed trend line appears once the range covers three weeks or more.
  • Estimate Accuracy: one dot per completed task, comparing its approved hours with the hours actually logged. Red dots went over budget.
  • Task Throughput by Status: how many tasks were in each status, week by week.

Estimate Accuracy Breakdown​

This section looks at completed tasks that have both an estimate and logged time.

  • Total Estimated, Total Actual and Overall Accuracy sum up those tasks.
  • The table shows each Team Member with their Tasks, Avg Estimate, Avg Actual and Accuracy.

Accuracy is the estimate divided by the time actually logged. 100% means spot on. Below 100% means the work took longer than estimated; above 100% means it took less. Green is within 10%, yellow within 30%, and red is further off.

Each person is credited with their own share of the estimate and only the time they logged themselves.

The Estimated vs Actual Hours by Member chart shows the same numbers as bars. The actual bar turns red when someone went over their estimate.

Estimate Revisions​

This section counts approved changes to a task's hours within the date range, by the person who asked for them. You see Revisions, Tasks affected, Hours added and Hours removed, then a table per person and a By task table. Use By task to find tasks that keep growing. Click a column heading to re-order it.

Older revisions may show Not recorded for their size, because the hours changed weren't stored at the time. The counts are still complete.

Hours: approved vs logged​

The bottom part has four cards:

  • Hours Approved: the approved hours of the tasks listed.
  • Hours Logged: the time logged on them. It turns red and says Over budget when logged time is higher than approved.
  • Hours Left: how much of the approved time is still unused, as a percentage.
  • Variance: logged minus approved. A plus sign means over budget.

Tasks still waiting for approval, sent back for changes, rejected, cancelled or archived aren't counted in these cards.

Hours Comparison by Task​

Each task shows three bars: Estimated, Approved and Logged. The logged number turns red when it's higher than the approved hours. Click a task to open it.

To narrow the list:

  1. Pick a period in the dropdown next to the title: This Week, This Month, Last Month, Last 3 Months or All Time.
  2. Type in Search tasks... to find a task by name.
  3. Use Status and Assignee to filter.
  4. Click Sort to cycle through Newest, Oldest, High Priority, Low Priority and Manager priority.

Keep in mind:

  • The period picks tasks by the date they were created. This Week means the last 7 days and This Month the last 30 days.
  • Logged counts all the time ever logged on the task, not only time in that period. To see time by date, use My report or the team timesheet.
  • These filters are separate from the filter bar at the top.

How the hours are counted​

  • Estimated is the time that was asked for. Approved is the time an approver agreed to. If a task has no approved hours yet, its estimate is used.
  • A task's hours include its subtasks.
  • If hours are set per person, the task's total is the hours per person times the number of assignees.
  • On a repeating task, the total is the hours per occurrence times the occurrences so far.
  • Logged is the time entries on the task. Time imported from before your team used TaskFlow counts as estimated, approved and logged alike, so it doesn't change the variance.