About Labor Hours

There are two "Labor Hours" fields in issues. They are labeled identically, but serve different purposes.

One of them displays the aggregate total of labor hours entered for that particular issue, and its visibility is governed by the Issue Form associated with the issue.
The other "Labor Hours" field is embedded within individual issue notes. This field is independent from the Issue Forms visibility control, and provides the data that feeds the aggregate total "Labor Hours" field, if it is present on the issue.

"Labor Hours" can be used to record, display, aggregate, and report upon the amount of time that users have spent working on an issue. Labor hours plays a role in several areas inside the product:

Issues - Users track time spent working on the issue
Service Contracts - Labor hours are entered against (deducted from) an organization's service contract
Projects - Issues that are a part of a project can be used to determine the actual number of labor hours that the project required
Tasks - Labor hours can be entered (and required) when completing a task
Billing Module line items - Labor hours can form an integral part of billing rates

We will discuss the usage of the labor hours field in issues in the section below. After that, we will go over other sections of the product where labor hours play a role.

Labor Hours in Issues

The labor hours entered by a user on an issue note are intended to reflect the time they spent on that particular issue and its related notes.

If it is desired for users to interact with labor hours on issue notes, then:

The user editing the issue or completing the task requiring labor hours must have the permission "Can enter Labor Hours when entering Notes/completing Tasks"
(Optional) Enable the Start / Stop functionality, which enables users to let the system keep track of their time spent on an issue

Let's go over these configuration changes and how to carry them out.

Permissions

Users must have the "Can enter Labor Hours when entering Notes/completing Tasks" permission in order to edit the Labor Hours field for notes on issues or when completing tasks.

User permissions are a weighty subject, so please consult the relevant article and apply this permission to the appropriate users in a method consistent with best practices.

You can control the visibility of the Labor Hours (aggregate total) field on issue by adding, removing, and positioning on from the issue forms that you use on your issues. If this field is included on an issue form, then users will be able to see it on issues derived from that issue form. The visibility of the Labor Hours field within issue notes is not governed by this setting.

Steps:

Click the gear icon in the upper right > click Issue Forms beneath Issue Setup.
Click edit next to the issue form that you want to change.
Drag the "Labor Hours" field from the Available Fields column to the location you want them to appear on the Included Fields column.
Click Update.

A confirmation message will appear when this process is complete.

Issue types that utilize this issue form will now display the Labor Hours field.

Start / Stop Times

This is toggled from the Optional Fields screen. When enabled, this function:

Provides "Start Clock" and "Stop Clock" buttons when viewing issues, which allows users working an issue to let the system track the time spent on the issue for them
Expands the normally-sparse "Labor Hours" entry area under the Note field to include detailed date / time information and the ability to select which Service Contract (if applicable) to apply to the current issue

Organization | Service Contracts

In instances where you are supporting clients, Service Contracts may be established for an organization. The system will automatically subtract any labor hours recorded in an issue from the balance of hours on the service contract. Multiple contracts can be established for an organization. Users will be able to view and select the appropriate contract when entering their labor hours in an issue.

Creating and using service contracts will also allow you to run reports later to determine the amount of labor hours used on issues submitted against an organization, as well as determine other details in the relationship between the two.

You can learn more about service contracts here.

Projects

You can optionally track the labor hours for the issues and tasks that are associated with a project. A given project can tally up the number of labor hours in related issues and tasks. You have some control over how this information is displayed.

Have a look at our Projects article for more information.

Tasks

You can configure Issuetrak to require a user to enter labor hours when a task is completed by enabling "Activate Popup Time Entry" on the Optional Fields screen. Upon completion of a task, a popup window will appear and allow labor hours to be entered, as well as the selection of a service contract to apply these against.

Please see our Tasks article for more information.

Billing Module

It is possible to use labor hours to help calculate invoices in the Billing Module. Labor hours can be recorded in (at a minimum) quarter-hour increments.

The Billing Module is a weighty subject, so we would recommend that you have a look at this article for more information about it.

Reporting

Labor hours are present in the "Issues" dataset (and other related datasets) within Custom Reports, as well as many of the datasets that are combined with the Issues dataset. You can use Custom Reports to determine the individual amount of labor hours entered for each issue, aggregate total of hours spent on issues connected with a project, and more. We provide an example of how to report on labor hours here.

Be careful when attempting to track labor hours in Custom Reports, as it is possible to get duplicate labor hour values between the billing module and issue-related labor hours. "Billing Line Item Created By" is probably the best field to use when trying to gather information from the Billing Module using the Custom Reports