Time Log for Azure DevOps

Keep Completed and Remaining time accurate on every task — without the manual bookkeeping. Time Log lets each team member record time against work items in a couple of clicks, keeps Azure DevOps scheduling fields (Completed / Remaining / Original Estimate) in sync automatically, and rolls everything up into team reports, personal timesheets, a weekly shortfall report and an analytics dashboard.

Why teams use it

• Logged time updates Completed and Remaining automatically — no double entry, no drift.
• Report time accurately by project, team and time type for planning and billing.
• Give every user a personal weekly timesheet (My Time Log) with a configurable target.
• Spot under-logging early with the Weekly shortfall report.
• Visualise logged time with charts and summary tables via the Analytics Dashboard.
• Set capacity from actual values, and record, monitor and reduce waste.
• Automatically set Remaining work when it is missing on new work items.
• Full REST API for integration with your own applications, reporting suite or data warehouse.

Getting started

1. Install — click Get it free above and follow the prompts.
2. Add your API key — go to Project settings → Extensions → Time Log Admin and set the REST API key for your organisation.
   • Trial API key (shared, for evaluating the extension only): pfcooS75dcpEekjJvdsOvsY0FIJqrsoWicnyY1GQQVby2PVwVl0KBw==
   • For ongoing use, each organisation receives its own private key — keep it secret and do not share it (see Time Log REST API Key under Configuration below).
3. Set up time types — add the categories you want to track (Development, Meeting, Test, Documentation, Admin, Lost Time, …), per project or across the whole organisation. See Configuration below.
4. Log time — record time on any work item via the Time Log tab.
5. Review — open Time Log Summary and My Time Log from the menu.

Features

Manage time per work item

Every work item gets a Time Log tab.

Record what you spent — hours and minutes, the date, the type of work it was, and a comment — and the work item's Completed and Remaining fields move with it. There is no second place to update and nothing to reconcile later, so what Azure DevOps reports stays in step with what the team actually did.

Everything already logged against the item is listed underneath, so an earlier entry can be corrected or removed without leaving the work item. Time can be logged on behalf of other team members too, where your administrator allows it — useful for recording a workshop or a pairing session in one go.

See where the time went

The bar at the top of the tab says how far through its estimate a work item is. It does not say where that time went; the chart button beside it does. Time breakdown answers that without making you read the entry table row by row.

Three figures sit across the top: total logged with the number of entries behind it, of estimate — how much of the original estimate that represents — and remaining, with the forecast total it implies. Below them the same time is broken down three ways:

• By time type — whether an item went mostly on development or mostly on rework.
• By person — whether it was one person's work or the team's.
• By day — the fourteen most recent days that have time against them. Only days actually worked are shown, so an item picked up months after it was last touched does not render as a row of empty columns.

The first two show a stacked bar over a table of hours and share of the total. Colours match the Analytics Dashboard, so a time type reads the same in both.

The button appears only once there is time logged, so it never opens onto an empty dialog, and it reuses the entries the tab has already loaded — the breakdown costs no extra requests and needs no new permissions.

Start and stop a timer

Time can be recorded as it is spent, rather than remembered at the end of the day. A timer sits at the top of each work item's Time Log tab: start it when you pick the work up, and stopping it logs the time. The timer already knows the work item, the type, the day and the duration, so there is nothing left to fill in. The same timer appears on My Time Log, where a ▶ in any of today's cells starts one and a bar above the grid shows what is running, how long for, and when it started.

Only one timer runs per user at a time. Starting a second asks first, and by default logs the running one's time against its own work item before the new one begins, so nothing is thrown away by accident. Where a project offers a single time type there is nothing to choose, so the timer starts on the click instead of opening a picker.

The timer lives against your Azure DevOps account rather than in the browser. It survives a reload, follows you between machines, and reads the same in both places. A timer running on a different work item is drawn differently from one running on the item in front of you, and captioned with the work item it belongs to, so its elapsed time cannot be mistaken for time accrued here. One left running for more than twelve hours is flagged rather than stopped for you.

What happens when you stop depends on where you are. On My Time Log the Add Time Log dialog always opens, pre-filled with the elapsed time and the type it was started with, because the work item being timed may not be one on screen. On the work item's own tab the time is recorded directly — unless Minimum comment length is set, in which case the dialog opens there too, ready for the comment your organisation requires. Cancelling it leaves the timer running rather than losing the time.

A timed entry is an ordinary entry: the lock date, the ban on logging to closed items and the rule on future dates all apply, and Completed and Remaining update exactly as they do for one typed in by hand.

The timer is off until an administrator turns it on — see Enable the time log timer under Configuration.

Time Log Summary

Time Log Summary answers the question every stand-up, invoice and sprint review runs into: who logged what, against which work item, in which week?

Choose a range, a project or several, a team and a user, then Search. The project filter opens on the project you are in and takes as many as you need, with the team and user lists following your choice; organisations with a single project do not see it, since there is nothing to choose. The range is one dropdown — This week, Last week, Last 2 weeks, Last 3 weeks, This month, Last month, Last 2 months, or any custom from/to dates. The Range total for everything on screen sits right beside the buttons, and Export downloads the full result as CSV for your own spreadsheets, invoicing or data warehouse.

• A week at a glance, a month when you need it — days run across the columns beneath the week they belong to. Click a week heading to collapse it to a single total, click again for the daily breakdown, so a two-month range stays as readable as a single week.
• Group it your way — User, Project, Area path, Iteration, Parent item, Work item and Type are chips you can tick, untick and drag into any order. The grid regroups instantly, so the same search answers "what did this team spend on that epic?" and "how much of the month went to meetings?" without searching again.
• Save grouping — stores your arrangement against your Azure DevOps account, so it follows you to any browser or machine and is waiting for you next time.
• Straight through to the work — rows carry the real Azure DevOps work item type icon and link to the item itself, custom types included. Work items that have since been deleted still let you clear up the time log entries they left behind.
• Keep digging — View Dashboard carries the filters you already set into the Analytics Dashboard, and My Time Log jumps to your personal timesheet.

Team leads get the whole team in one grid: expand a person down through their projects, work items and time types, or collapse them back to a single weekly total.

My Time Log

The My Time Log hub is your own weekly timesheet: review and correct everything you have logged without visiting each work item in turn.

• Work items down the rows, Monday–Sunday across the columns, grouped by project.
• Each cell shows one pill per log on that day. Click a pill to edit; click an empty cell to create — the dialog is pre-filled with the correct date and work item.
• Navigate Previous / Next / This week to move through the weeks — no hard limit on how far back you can go.
• Work items you have logs against this week are shown, plus any active work items assigned to you. Toggle Show assigned work items off for a pure logged-time view.
• The hero card at the top shows total time logged this week against a configurable weekly target, with progress bar, true percentage, and hours to go / over.
• Honours the admin settings: future-date logging, minimum comment length, lock date, and disabled time types.

Copy last week

Most weeks look a great deal like the one before them. Copy last week, beside the Show assigned work items toggle, takes last week's entries and offers them for this week, day for day — a Wednesday's three hours becomes this Wednesday's three hours.

• The dialog shows last week as a miniature of the grid: one row per work item, the seven days across, and a chip for every entry. Untick a whole work item, or a single day, and the total at the foot follows along. Nothing is written until you press Copy.
• Copy comments too is on by default; turn it off to copy the hours and the type but leave the comments blank.
• An entry that is already logged in this week — same work item, day, type and duration — starts unticked and is marked, so running the copy twice does not silently double your week. Tick it if you really did do the same hour twice.
• If part of a copy fails, the dialog stays open with the entries that saved unticked, so pressing Copy again retries only what failed.
• Every rule that applies to logging a single entry applies here. An entry that cannot be copied is shown struck through and cannot be ticked, with the reason spelled out beneath the grid: the work item is closed or has been deleted, the day it would land on is in the future or on or before the lock date, its time type has since been disabled, or the organisation requires a comment the entry does not have.
• Copied entries update Completed and Remaining on each work item exactly as entries typed by hand do — once per work item, with the total of everything copied against it.

Analytics Dashboard

A View Dashboard button on the Time Log Summary opens the Analytics Dashboard — a visual breakdown of the data currently shown in the summary. It uses the same date range and user filters, so you can drill from any summary view into charts and aggregate tables without re-entering filters.

The dashboard shows:

• Summary cards — total hours, active users, total entries, average hours per entry, distinct categories, and distinct work items.
• Time Trends — hours logged by user, daily and weekly trends, monthly totals, and hours split by category.
• User Breakdown — active users per month and average hours per task for the top 10 users.
• Detailed tables — per-user and per-category summaries with entry counts and share of total time.

Time Log Admin

Manage time types

Create time types so time can be broken down for reporting and planning. Reach them from Project settings → Extensions → Time Log Admin.

Who can manage time types

The Time Log Admin page is open only to Project Administrators of the current project — everyone else sees a "Not authorised" panel instead of the admin UI. Membership is transitive, so Project Collection Administrators, and members of AAD / Entra ID / on-premises AD groups nested inside Project Administrators, are recognised too.

Within the page, each time type is managed by an administrator of its own project. The Current Types table lists every project's types, so on a row for a project you do not administer the Move entries, Delete and Edit icons are greyed out and inert, and the create / edit form's Add / Update button is disabled with an explanatory message when the project you have selected is not one you administer. Organisation-wide ("All Projects") types, and orphaned types whose owning project has been deleted or is not visible to you (shown as "Unknown project"), defer to the current project's administrator. The check fails closed: while your permissions for a project are still being resolved the controls stay disabled.

Creating a type

Each time type can be made available to All Projects, or to one project chosen from the Project menu. When logging time, you are offered that project's own types plus every All Projects type.

Tick Project Default to have the type preselected when logging time. The default is taken from the work item's own project, so logging against a work item in another project picks up that project's default rather than the current page's; if that project has no default, any type marked as a default is used.

The list of time types can then be amended as needed. Types are listed All Projects first, then by project and name, with a tick in the Default column against each project's default and the Options column carrying the per-row actions. A disabled type is struck through and carries a Blocked icon alongside its extra Move entries action.

Disabling a time type

A type that is no longer in use can be retired without losing the history behind it: edit the type and tick Disabled. A default type cannot be disabled — clear Project Default first.

A disabled type still appears in the type dropdown when logging time, marked with a Blocked icon and sorted below the active types, but it cannot be chosen for a new entry. Existing entries keep their type: they are shown greyed on the work item's Time Log tab, and can still be edited (with a warning that the type cannot be used for new logs) or deleted.

Move time log entries to another type

When a time type is disabled it can no longer be selected for new time logs, but existing entries still reference it. To tidy these up, each disabled type in the Current Types table has a Move entries action.

Choose a replacement (active) type and every time log entry using the disabled type is reassigned to it, with a confirmation of how many entries were moved. For a type that belongs to a project, the Show replacement types from toggle filters the replacement list between that type's own project and "All Projects" (organisation-level) types — it only changes which types you can pick, all of the disabled type's entries are moved either way. An "All Projects" type offers organisation-level replacements only, so the toggle is not shown. Once a disabled type's entries have been moved, the type can be safely deleted.

Weekly shortfall report

Spot users who logged less than their weekly target for any ISO week from a single page. Reach it via the Weekly shortfall report button on the Time Log Admin page.

• Defaults to the last completed week; navigate with Previous / Next / "This week".
• Shows each user's effective target (organisation default or personal override), logged time, and shortfall — sorted by largest deficit first. A personalised badge marks users on a per-user target.
• Scoped to active users only (those with at least one log in the previous four weeks), so leavers are not surfaced.
• Logged time is the user's total across every project in the organisation for that week — the same figure as My Time Log. The team filter only chooses which users are listed; it never narrows what is logged for them.
• Hero cards summarise users below target, total shortfall across the organisation, and average shortfall per user.
• Download CSV exports the table for further analysis.

REST API with full query support

The Time Log REST API lets you get more out of your Time Log data. Query by any combination of filters, then pass the results to your in-house reporting suite or data warehouse. Anything the extension records, your own code can read back — and create, amend and delete, so time logged in another system can be brought in without anyone retyping it.

What you need

Three things, all on the Time Log Admin page (Project settings → Extensions → Time Log Admin):

• Your organisation ID. Shown in the top right corner of the page, with a button to copy it. Every URL starts with it, and it is what scopes a request to your data.
• Your REST API key. The Time Log REST API Key setting, issued with your licence agreement. It is the only credential the API needs, and it goes in the x-functions-key header of every request.
• The root URL. https://boznet-timelogapi.azurewebsites.net/api/ for the hosted service. An on-premises deployment has its own, which is whatever is in the Time Log REST API URL setting.

Your first request

Every endpoint has the same shape — root URL, your organisation ID, then the path — and the API key travels in the x-functions-key header. This asks for everything logged in January:

curl -H "x-functions-key: YOUR-API-KEY" \
  "https://boznet-timelogapi.azurewebsites.net/api/YOUR-ORGANISATION-ID/timelog/query?fromDate=2026-01-01&toDate=2026-01-31"

Which comes back as JSON, one object per entry:

[
  {
    "timeLogId": "ca42579e-6a00-464c-bcaa-7987cbf374bb",
    "comment": "Fixing the import",
    "week": "2026-W02",
    "timeTypeDescription": "Development",
    "minutes": 120,
    "date": "2026-01-08",
    "userId": "a96193a0-51e5-482b-9bcb-b1efcef4b170",
    "userName": "Anna Smith",
    "userEmail": "anna@example.com",
    "workItemId": 3814,
    "projectId": "31b3d8f8-1092-4f88-9847-7cc3b4f0eb9d",
    "createdOn": "2026-01-08T17:04:11.98",
    "createdBy": "Anna Smith",
    "updatedOn": null,
    "updatedBy": null,
    "deletedOn": null,
    "deletedBy": null
  }
]

At least one filter is required, so a query cannot accidentally ask for every log an organisation has ever recorded. Beyond the dates above you can filter by work item, project, user, team, time type or ISO week, and by when a log was created, updated or deleted — which is what an incremental nightly extract into a warehouse uses to pick up only what has changed since it last ran.

Full reference, with every endpoint and worked examples: https://docs.timelogextension.com/reference/rest-api/

An example query in Postman:

An example chart in Power BI, extracting and presenting the same data:

Configuration

Prevent remaining time going negative

When set, if time remaining becomes negative it is set to zero. When not set, you are asked whether to allow the remaining to go negative.

Keep Remaining in sync with Original Estimate

When set, Remaining is recalculated as Original Estimate − Completed Work on every add / edit / delete of a time log, so Completed + Remaining always equals Original Estimate. This prevents Remaining from drifting when the Original Estimate is changed after time has been logged. Skipped when Original Estimate is missing or the work item is closed. Manual edits to Completed on the work item form, and any Completed work that pre-dated the extension, are respected because the calculation uses the Completed field after the change has been applied.

Prevent time logging to closed items

When set, time cannot be logged to items that are closed. When not set, logging to a closed item is allowed but leaves the remaining time unchanged, since a closed item's remaining is assumed to be zero.

Allow logging time to future dates

When set, time can be logged for dates in the future.

Assign task automatically

When set, logging the first entry against an unassigned task assigns it to the user the time was logged for.

Start task automatically

When set, logging the first entry against a new task starts it.

Prevent adding time to other users

When set, time cannot be added for other users, and their entries cannot be amended or deleted.

Allow selecting many users when logging time

When set, time can be added for several users at once.

Prevent logging time on or before this date

Lock down logging so time cannot be logged, or existing logs changed, on or before the date entered. Format YYYY-MM-DD.

Time Log REST API Key

Your organisation's secure API key. Do not share it with anyone else.

Time Log REST API URL

Used to point the extension at a different Time Log REST API — needed only for on-premises deployments.

Minimum comment length

Prevent saving time if comment length is less than this. 0 to allow empty comments.

Only show current project in Summary

When set, the Time Log Summary's project filter offers the current project and nothing else, and every search is scoped to that project whatever the filter is showing.

Restrict summary to current user

When set, the Time Log Summary stops users browsing each other's time. The team filter offers only the teams the user belongs to, and within those teams they can select only themselves — unless they are an Azure DevOps team administrator of a selected team, in which case they can select every member of that team. Being an administrator of one team does not expose the members of another team the user merely belongs to. Project Administrators are exempt: the restriction lifts entirely for someone who administers every project the filter is set to, and where they administer only some of them they see every team of those projects alongside their own teams elsewhere. Defaults off, so existing organisations see no change.

Enable the time log timer

When set, a start/stop timer is available on My Time Log (a ▶ in each of today’s cells, and a bar above the grid showing what is running) and on each work item’s Time Log tab. Only one timer runs per user at a time, and it is stored against your Azure DevOps account rather than the browser, so it survives a reload and is the same timer wherever you look at it. Stopping a timer opens the ordinary Add Time Log dialog pre-filled with the elapsed time and the type it was started with, so every other rule on this page — comment length, the lock date, closed work items — still applies before anything is recorded. When not set, no timer is shown anywhere and no timer data is read or written. Defaults off, so existing organisations see no change.

Weekly target hours

Target hours per week shown on the My Time Log page. Non-integer values like 37.5 are supported. Set to 0 to hide the progress bar.

Include ADO days off

When set, Azure DevOps Capacity team and personal days off are folded into the My Time Log grid — the column is shaded and carries a badge linking to the sprint capacity page — and reduce the weekly target on My Time Log and the Weekly shortfall report by the organisation's daily rate (weekly target ÷ 5) for each day off. You can override this for yourself from the My weekly target dialog (Use organisation default / Always include / Always exclude).

Azure DevOps Server compatibility

The extension targets REST API version 6.1 — the maximum supported by Azure DevOps Server 2020 — so it works on both on-premises Server installs and hosted Azure DevOps. To preserve this, the build pins azure-devops-extension-api to the v1 line; v2 and every later major of that package default to REST api-version=7.2, which Server 2020 rejects with a 400. 1.158.0 is the final v1 release, so this is a ceiling rather than a version we have fallen behind on, and the extension manifest declares a matching api-version/5.1 demand.

azure-devops-extension-sdk is pinned at 2.0.11 as a direct consequence of that, not as a separate decision. azure-devops-extension-api@1.158.0 declares the SDK as a hard dependency at ~2.0.11 and calls into it, so raising the SDK on its own makes npm install a second copy nested underneath the API. The SDK refuses to initialise twice — it guards on a _AzureDevOpsSDKVersion global — and two copies in one bundle means two message channels to the Azure DevOps host and a broken handshake. Both pins therefore move together, and only if on-premises Server support is dropped.

TFS 2018 and hosted Azure DevOps servers

There is some extra work to do, documented here.

If you are still having issues, try authorising your project's process to allow permissions — for example Admin settings → Process → Agile → Settings → Security → Add user or group, then allow all permissions (not inherited).

Migration of data

If you wish to migrate data into Time Log, please ask for details. We have a high-volume migration tool that can load large quantities of data quickly.

FAQs

Trials and installation

Is there a free trial?

Yes. The evaluation version allows 250 time log records per month.

How do I install Time Log?

Install the evaluation version from the Azure DevOps Marketplace and choose your organisation. It appears in your projects straight away: a Time Log tab on every work item, and Time Log Summary and My Time Log in the main navigation.

What happens when I reach the 250-record limit?

You are warned as you approach it. Once it is reached, no new time log records can be created until the next month, or until you move to Premium. Nothing is lost: every record you already have stays available to view and report on, and your data is never deleted. The limit can be raised on request.

Does Time Log work with Azure DevOps Server (on-premises)?

Yes. Both Azure DevOps Services (cloud-hosted) and Azure DevOps Server are supported. See Azure DevOps Server compatibility for the versions this covers.

How do I get the Premium version?

The Premium listing is private on the Azure DevOps Marketplace. To upgrade you sign a licence agreement covering the agreed terms, after which you receive access and your own REST API key. Contact us at info@timelogextension.com to start.

Using Time Log

Does Time Log update Remaining Work automatically?

Yes. Completed Work and Remaining Work are both updated as time is logged, so boards, burndown charts and capacity planning reflect real progress without anyone editing the fields by hand.

Can several people log time to the same work item?

Yes. Each person's time is recorded separately while the work item carries the combined total, which is what you want for pair programming, workshops and team ceremonies.

Can I edit or delete time log entries after they are created?

Yes. Edit or delete them from the work item's Time Log tab, or from My Time Log. Your administrator can restrict this: Prevent adding time to other users limits you to your own entries, and Prevent logging time on or before this date closes off earlier periods entirely.

Does Time Log work with Sprints and Kanban boards?

Yes. Time can be logged against any work item type, on any board — Sprints, Kanban, Scrum and custom board configurations alike.

What are time types, and how do I use them?

Time types categorise time for reporting: Development, Support, Testing, Documentation, and whatever else you need to tell apart. Create them per project or across the whole organisation from Project settings → Extensions → Time Log Admin.

Can I move time log entries to a different time type?

Yes. Disable the type you are retiring, then use its Move entries action on the Time Log Admin page to reassign every entry to another active type. Once drained, the old type can be deleted.

Can I see my weekly timesheet?

Yes. My Time Log shows everything you logged in any week on one grid, so there is no need to visit each work item.

Is there a REST API?

Yes. Every Time Log operation is available through the Time Log REST API, so you can feed your own reporting suite or data warehouse.

Can I book a demo?

Yes. Email info@timelogextension.com and we will arrange a convenient time.

Pricing and billing

How does pricing work?

Premium is pay-as-you-go. Time log records are bought in advance and consumed as they are created, so you pay only for what you use. Current pricing is £50 per 1,000 records, with volume discounts of 10% at 50,000 and 20% at 100,000. That includes unlimited users, unlimited projects and full REST API access. Payment is by card or bank transfer, and you are invoiced automatically once fewer than 30 days of records remain.

How many users can use Time Log?

As many as you like. You pay per time log record created, never per user, which keeps the cost predictable as a team grows.

Do unused time log records expire?

No. Records bought in advance never expire and roll over indefinitely, so you can use them at your own pace.

Can I cancel at any time?

Yes. There is no long-term commitment, and you can pause or stop at any point.

History

Contribute

Please pass on any questions or suggestions via the Q & A section or directly to info@timelogextension.com