Advanced roadmaps - Creating an issue with Original estimate populated

[Anita Cacic]

Hi,

I would like to track both Original and Remaining estimates for all of my issues. Use case I have question about is how can I set/update both of the estimates when working in Advanced roadmaps. Please see my examples below:

1. Jira - creating an issue and entering Original estimate sets Remaining estimate to the same value - expected and ok

2. In Portfolio ("old view") there is an option to set/update both values - expected and ok

3. Advanced Roadmaps there is option to set/update Remaining estimate, but I don't see any way to add/update Original estimate. Also tried creating issue from Advanced roadmaps and entering only Remaining estimate - that results in Original estimate being empty. Is there any option to solve for this?

[Dave]

Hi @Anita Cacic

I would recommend that you add the the "Progress (days)" field to your plan as well as the "Estimates (d)" field.

If no original estimate has been set on an issue then giving the Estimate field a value and saving back to Jira will set the original estimate. It is not possible to log time spent on an issue through the plan (it is expected that this will be done on the issue screen) but you can view the progress of hours logged against the original estimate using the Progress field.

If you change an existing value on the Estimate field in a plan and save that change then this will set that value as the remaining time left to complete.

I hope this helps but please let me know if you need any additional information or if I've not understood the question properly!

Regards,

Dave

[Anita Cacic]

Hi Dave,

this If no original estimate has been set on an issue then giving the Estimate field a value and saving back to Jira will set the original estimate. is what I'm unable to do. 

Here are my steps:

1. In advanced roadmaps created new Task and entered 1d in Estimates (d) field

2. In Progress (days) I can see 1 out of 1 days remaining and that is expected

3. When I commit changes and open the same issue in Jira I see that Original estimate field is empty

Can you please double check those steps?

Advanced roadmaps:

Jira:

[Dave]

Hi @Anita Cacic ,

That looks like the older issue details screen - is that a Cloud platform screenshot? It also looks like you're using the Tempo add-on application.

Compare with these screenshots:

Having said that... I have subsequently noticed that you are absolutely correct that the "Original estimate" field (which I didn't have displayed on my issue screen) isn't being updated - the plan is only setting the time remaining (which is what is also used to initially populate the time remaining in the time tracking field).

So actually you're completely correct that the plan is not updating the Original Estimate field (I had just been focused on the time tracking field) - I got confused with how it works and I apologise for misleading you with my previous response - I'm so sorry!

Regards,

Dave

[Anita Cacic]

Hi @Dave thank you for your response.

Can you please clarify just the next steps? Is this issue with Original estimate something that is on roadmap? Is there any workaround except just creating issues in Jira if I need to track Original estimate as well? 

[Dave]

Hi @Anita Cacic ,

Unfortunately this isn't something that is on our roadmap and I've actually validated that this is working as intended (I had just misremembered how it worked unfortunately). In terms of a workaround, it's not going to be possible to view the Original Estimate field directly in the plan but if you want to track it within Jira issues then setting it directly on the issue would be the way to do it. Could you provide some more information on how you would want to track that original estimate field and what you'd do with the information? Is it so that you can check if the original estimate has been exceeded or changed?

Regards,
Dave

[Anita Cacic]

Hi @Dave ,

I'm ok with it's not going to be possible to view the Original Estimate field directly in the plan . 

What I am confused about is the following

- when creating issue in Jira with Original estimate empty, but Remaining estimate populated with 1d the result is both Original and Remaining estimate populated with 1d - and that is ok.

- when creating issue in Advanced roadmaps with Remaining estimate populated with 1d the result is Original estimate empty and Remaining estimate populated with 1d

What is the reason why the same logic is not applied when creating issue in Advanced roadmaps with Remaining estimate populated?

Regards,

Anita

[Dave]

Hi @Anita Cacic,

I asked around and this is actually something that goes back many years (before most of the current team started working on Portfolio / Advanced Roadmaps). The most likely reason is one of expediency / simplicity. There is no reason why we wouldn't make the change to additionally set the Original Estimate if it is empty when creating an issue from a plan - but the reality is that this isn't on our current roadmap and isn't a huge priority for us (relative to other features and platform support work).

That's not a great answer I know, but an honest one at least. I wouldn't want to promise a change that we're unlikely to deliver in the near future.

Regards,

Dave

[Anita Cacic]

Thank you for your support @Dave 

[Dave]

No worries @Anita Cacic - very happy to help, sorry for any confusion I caused with my earlier responses!

[michaelheiml]

@Dave Hi Dave, there are several more users requesting this feature, e.g. in the community or as tickets/support request.

(not only) for us this is a vital feature, since we want to keep the original estimates and compare them to what is actually tracked/spent + this should not be altered by changing current (remaining) estimates.

So our workflow:

1. create a new project, set original estimates (and base our cost calculations upon it)

2. work on the project, update remaining estimates as required, log time

3. when project is finished, we compare original estimates to actually spent time, so we can learn for future projects.

This way has always been valueable in the past for us (we used JIRA self-hosted with the old Roadmaps for several years).

Since you write "there is no reason for us to not support it" - could you please put this feature on your roadmap again?

(And if we are already in wish-mode: why did you remove the also-very-helpful workdays/work hours/absences per user?

Thanks, Michael

[Garth Hume]

Same issue here.  I am working on a automation to set the Original estimate from the time remaining, if the original estimate is blank