A powerful Azure DevOps dashboard widget that visualizes how long work items spend in each board column. Identify bottlenecks, optimize your workflow, and make data-driven process improvements.
Why Use Time in Column Tracker?
Understanding where work items spend their time is crucial for:
Identifying bottlenecks in your development process
Measuring cycle time across your workflow stages
Improving team efficiency with data-driven insights
Sprint retrospectives with concrete time metrics
Key Features
Visual Analytics
Horizontal bar chart showing average time per column
Percentage breakdown of time distribution across columns
Percentile statistics (P75, P90, P95) for SLA tracking
Bottleneck detection with automatic highlighting
Done column detection with automatic identification and optional exclusion
Smart time formatting - displays in minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, or years
Flexible Configuration
Saved query support - use your existing Azure DevOps queries
Custom WIQL queries - write specific queries for targeted analysis
Area path filtering - automatically shows columns relevant to your team
Multiple sort options - by time, item count, or alphabetically
Data Export
CSV export for external analysis and reporting
Includes work item details, time per column, and total cycle time
How It Works
Add the widget to your Azure DevOps dashboard
Configure a query to select the work items you want to analyze
View insights - the widget calculates time spent in each column based on work item history
Take action - use the data to optimize your workflow
Display Examples
Time Formatting
Duration
Display
Less than 1 hour
45m
Less than 1 day
6h
Less than 1 week
3d 5h
Less than 1 month
2w 3d
Less than 1 year
3mo 2w
1 year or more
1y 3mo
Percentage Distribution
Each column shows what percentage of total cycle time work items spend there, making it easy to see where the most time is consumed.
Use Cases
For Scrum Masters
Track sprint velocity and identify recurring bottlenecks
Facilitate data-driven retrospectives
Monitor WIP limits effectiveness
For Project Managers
Report on team efficiency metrics
Identify process improvement opportunities
Track trends over time with exported data
For Development Teams
Understand where work gets stuck
Balance workload across workflow stages
Celebrate improvements in cycle time
Requirements
Azure DevOps Services or Azure DevOps Server 2020+
Read access to work items (vso.work scope)
Dashboard edit permissions to add the widget
Support
For issues, feature requests, or questions, please visit our repository or contact your Azure DevOps administrator.
Version History
1.3.0
Added percentile statistics (P75, P90, P95) for SLA tracking
Added "Exclude Done columns" option for accurate cycle time metrics
Automatic Done column detection from board configuration
1.2.0
Added percentage breakdown for time distribution
Added average cycle time display
Added duration safeguards for data quality
Improved handling of negative values (data inconsistencies)
Enhanced time formatting with weeks, months, and years
