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View Actual Hours

Last update: Wed Jul 23 2025 00:00:00 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time)

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  • User

The hours you log on your work items in ÃÛ¶¹ÊÓƵ Workfront are considered Actual Hours.

Actual Hours represent the actual time that it took you to complete a task, issue, or a project.

We recommend that hours should be logged on work items, which are tasks and issues. However, as a Workfront administrator, you can allow users to also log time on projects depending on your organization’s workflows.

For more information about how to set up your system to allow users to log time on projects, see Configure timesheet and hour preferences.

Access requirements

Expand to view access requirements for the functionality in this article.

You must have the following access to perform the steps in this article:

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ÃÛ¶¹ÊÓƵ Workfront plan Any
ÃÛ¶¹ÊÓƵ Workfront license*

New: Standard

Or

Current: Work or higher
Access level configurations View or higher access to Tasks, Projects, or Issues
Object permissions

View or higher permissions to a task, a project, or an issue

For information on requesting additional access, see Request access to objects.

*For more detail about the information in this table, see Access requirements in Workfront documentation.

Actual Hours vs Legacy Actual Hours

Depending on what area of Workfront you access the actual hours from, they could refer to one of the following logged hours:

  • In project, tasks, and issue reports and lists:

    • Actual Hours: Hours logged for project, tasks, or issues after May 2021. They are stored in the Workfront database in hours and their valuefield is actualWorkRequiredDouble.

    • Legacy Actual Hours: Hours logged for projects, tasks, or issues any time, including before May 2021. They are stored in the Workfront database as minutes and their valuefield is actualWorkRequired.

      note important
      IMPORTANT
      The Actual Cost of the project uses Legacy Actual Hours to calculate.

  • In the project, task, or issue Details area:

    • Actual Hours: Hours logged for projects, tasks, or issues after May 2021. They are stored in the Workfront database in hours and their valuefield is actualWorkRequiredDouble.
    • Actual Hours: When they are accessed using a Native field reference custom field in a project, task, or issue custom form.

Actual Hours on tasks and issues vs. Actual Hours on projects

The Actual Hours on tasks and issues represent the number of hours logged directly on the tasks and issues.

Actual Hours from children tasks roll up to the Actual Hours on the parent task. The following formula applies for the Actual Hours on a parent task:

Parent Task Actual Hours = All Tasks Actual Hours + Parent Task Actual Hours

Actual Hours for Projects represent a total of Actual Hours from all the project’s tasks (including hours logged directly on parent tasks), all the project’s issues, and the Actual Hours logged on the project itself.

The following formula applies for the Actual Hours on a project:

Project Actual Hours = All Tasks Actual Hours + All Issues Actual Hours + All Project Actual Hours

Find Actual Hours

Finding the value for Actual Hours for an item is identical for tasks, projects, and issues.

Actual Hours in the Details section actual-hours-in-the-details-section

Finding Actual Hours in the Details section is identical for projects, tasks, and issues.

To locate Actual Hours in Task Details:

  1. Go to a task you want to review the Actual Hours for.
  2. In the left panel, click Task Details. The Overview section displays.
  3. Locate the Actual Hours value in the Working time section. This is the total of hours logged on this task.
  4. (Optional and conditional) If the Actual Hours native field reference was added to a project, task, or issue custom form, go to the custom form and locate the Actual Hours in the custom field. This is the total of hours logged for the object.

Actual Hours in the Hours section actual-hours-in-the-hours-section

Finding Actual Hours in the Hours section is identical for projects, tasks, and issues.

To locate Actual Hours in the Hours section of a task:

  1. Go to a task you want to review the Actual Hours for.

  2. In the left panel, click Hours. A list of hour entries logged on the task displays, with the Hours column showing the total number of Actual Hours for the task.

  3. Ensure that the Standard view and the Project grouping are applied to this list.

  4. The Actual Hours for the task displays in the grouping line for the Actual Hours column.

Actual Hours and Legacy Actual Hours in reports

When building tasks, issues, or projects reports, you can show the Actual Hours and the Legacy Actual Hour values for each task, issue, or project in the report.

For information about the difference between Actual Hours and Legacy Actual Hours see the section Actual Hours vs Legacy Actual Hours in this article.

To show Actual Hours and Legacy Actual Hours in a task report:

  1. Click the Main Menu icon Main Menu in the upper-right corner of ÃÛ¶¹ÊÓƵ Workfront, or (if available), click the Main Menu icon Main Menu in the upper-left corner, then click Reports.

  2. On the Reports page, click New Report, then choose Task as your object.

  3. In the bottom-right corner of the page, click Add Column.

  4. In the Show in this column drop-down field, start typing Actual Hours, then select the field when it appears in the list.

  5. Repeat the step above to add the Legacy Actual Hours field to the report.

  6. In the bottom-left corner of the page, click Save + Close to save the report.

  7. In the Name this Report to Save It dialog box, enter a new report name, then click Apply.

  8. Repeat the same steps for a project or issue report.

Actual Hours in Resource Management tools actual-hours-in-resource-management-tools

If you want to see the progress of the work your users are doing on their assigned tasks and issues, you can view them in the following Resource Management tools:

Actual Hours in the Workfront API

Most Workfront fields that store hours are saved in the Workfront database in minutes. For example, the name of the Planned Hours field of a task is workRequired in the Workfront database and it is stored in minutes.

You must account for the conversion from minutes to hours when accessing these fields in API calls or in calculated custom fields or columns.

The Actual Hours logged for projects, tasks, or issues are currently stored in the Workfront database as minutes and their valuefield is actualWorkRequired.

With the following version of the Workfront API scheduled to release later in 2025, Actual Hours are stored in the following fields and units in the database:

  • Actual Hours: Hours logged for project, tasks, or issues after May 2021. They are stored in the Workfront database in hours and their valuefield is actualWorkRequiredDouble.

  • Legacy Actual Hours: Hours logged for projects, tasks, or issues any time, including before May 2021. They are stored in the Workfront database as minutes and their valuefield is actualWorkRequired.

    note important
    IMPORTANT
    The Actual Cost of the project uses Legacy Actual Hours to calculate.

    For information about using Actual Hours in calculated columns or fields, see Report FAQs.

Log time

You can log time on tasks, issues, and projects in multiple ways.

For more information, see Log time.

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