Is there an API resource to obtain committed, completed points displayed in sprint Velocity report?

Question

Is there an API resource which returns "committed" and "completed" story points used to display "Velocity report" graph in "Reports" ?

Also, how and where can I get all issues included in "committed" story points value and also all issues included in "completed" story points value via REST API ?

Thanks.

Bill Sheboy · Answer

Hi @Peter V   -- Welcome to the Atlassian Community!

Scrum teams typically commit to a goal, not a total of story points or specific work items.  That provides the team and product owner flexibility to inspect and adapt if they discover they have met the goal early (or not).

However, it may be helpful for teams using story points to measure and observe their issues' change in value/status over time (not started, in progress, done).  That information is shown on the built-in Jira charts, but is not easily reportable as you requested.

One work-around is to add a custom field, such as Points At Sprint Start, and use an automation rule to set the field for the selected issues when the sprint begins.  You may then see the difference at sprint closure, observing edits / additions /removals.  When using this method, consider adding a second rule allowing you to manually reset any Points At Sprint Start for items returned to the backlog (not finished within the sprint).

Best regards,

Bill

unknown · Answer

There is no 'thing' that records committed story points, it's a concept. The velocity chart is showing the sum of all the story points for the issues at the start of the sprint, that is the 'commitment' made by the team. As the sprint progresses, the rate of completion of the story points is compared to the optimum and then extrapolated to show what the result will be if that completion rate remains constant. That difference between the optimum and the actual is the team's velocity. Consider it as an inverse burn-down chart, with a projected outcome.

The REST API can't look 'inside' charts to extract their data. If you wanted to replicate that chart's functionality via the REST API, you'd have to do multiple JQL queries as the sprint progressed to get all the issues, their story points and their status, then do all the equivalent calculations yourself.