Effort Tracker

Track time and effort spent on work items with activity-based logging, live timers, and reporting.

Features

Effort Logging (Work Item > Effort Tracker)

• Log Hours: Record time in H:MM format (1:30 = 1 hour 30 minutes)
• Activity Types: Categorize by Development, Testing, Code Review, or your own list
• Notes: Describe the work performed
• Billable: Optional per-project flag on each entry
• Grid View: All entries with pagination, edit and delete
• Auto-Update: Keeps the work item's "Completed Work" field in step

Summary View

See where the time went on an item and everything beneath it:

• Rollup Total: Hours logged on the work item and all of its children
• By Work Item: Parent and each child, with a share bar
• By Team Member: Who spent the time
• By Activity: Which activities consumed it

Quick Add and Live Timers (optional work item form control)

Track time without leaving the Details tab:

• Logged Total: Hours already recorded on the item
• Start/Stop Timer: Run a live timer and log the elapsed time on stop
• Quick Add: Add an entry inline
• Auto-Close: Forgotten timers are closed automatically after a configurable number of hours

This is a custom control: an organization administrator adds it to the work item form under Process > Layout > Add custom control, on the work item types that should have it. Organizations that do not add it carry no cost for it at all. Everything above is also available on the Effort Tracker tab, which needs no setup.

Reports Hub (Boards > Effort Reports)

• List View: One row per entry, sortable
• Pivot View: Timesheet grid by day or week, grouped by User → Area → Activity Type
• Weekly/Monthly Toggle and period navigation
• Filters: Date range, user, user status, activity type, area, work item IDs, billable
• Text Search: Search within notes
• CSV Export: Download the filtered result
• Total Hours: Aggregate for the current query

Project Settings (Project Settings > Effort Tracker)

• Activity Types: Create, edit, reorder, delete, with usage counts
• Import/Export: Bulk CSV import, export all project data
• Purge: Delete by user, area, activity type, work item, or billable flag
• Users: See who logged effort; deactivate or reactivate accounts
• Options:
  • Performance — how long settings and activity types are reused
  • Data Visibility — restrict non-admins to their own records
  • Billable — enable the billable field for this project, and choose whether it starts on Yes or No for a new entry
  • Additional Project Administrators — grant admin rights to an Azure DevOps permission group
  • Tracking Control — lock entries older than N days, block future dates, lock entries on closed work items after N hours, auto-close running timers after N hours

Organization Settings (Organization Settings > Effort Tracker)

• Cross-Project Export/Import: All projects at once
• Organization Statistics: Records, projects, hours
• License Management: Seats, usage, subscription
• Purge: Filter across projects by project, user, area, activity type or billable
• Settings: Tune how long administrator checks and Azure DevOps identifiers are cached, with an independent reset for each

Quick Start

Logging Effort

1. Open a work item in Azure Boards
2. Open the Effort Tracker tab
3. Enter date, hours, and activity type
4. Click Add — or start a timer from the Details tab and stop it when you're done

Viewing Reports

1. Go to Boards > Effort Reports
2. Set your filters and click Query
3. Switch to Pivot View for a timesheet layout, or Download for CSV

Requirements

• Azure DevOps Services (cloud)
• Azure DevOps Server 2019+ (on-premises)

Public REST API

Read your effort data programmatically, authenticating with an Azure DevOps Personal Access Token.

Base URL: https://efforttrackerapi.sinaware.com/api/v1/

Endpoints:

• GET /effortlogs — entries for a work item
• POST /effortlogs/query — advanced filters
• GET /effortlogs/export — CSV or JSON export
• GET /activitytypes — activity types
• GET /stats/summary — organization totals
• GET /stats/user-counts — entries per user
• GET /health — service status and build

Results follow the same visibility rules as the extension: administrators read the whole organization, everyone else reads their own entries.

Interactive Documentation: Swagger UI

Full API Documentation

Documentation

Full Documentation

Troubleshooting Guide

Pricing

• Free tier: Up to 5 users, unlimited projects and entries
• Paid plans: $1/seat/month, minimum 6 seats

Support

Report an Issue