(Company managed project) Problem changing estimate field on a board

Nik Jordanov

I would like to use the default Jira field for story point estimation ("Story point estimate"), but I can't - it's not listed in the board's "Estimation Statistics" drop-down.

Instead, I have a limited list of weird options ("locked forms" along with a few of my custom number fields) but worse - I cannot edit it. There is also a field that seems broken that appeared after creating a board with test data option - and it's not the "Story point estimate".

How can I change the list or at least make the default Jira field appear in it?

Thanks,

Nik

Trudy P Claspill

Hello @Nik Jordanov 

Welcome to the Atlassian community!

There are two pre-built fields for story points:

Story Points is a custom field that is available for Company Managed projects.

Story point estimate is the equivalent field, but used only in Team Managed projects.

Natively Jira does provide two story point fields (i.e. estimate vs actual) for stories. It provides no pre-built reports for analyzing a story point estimate vs. actual value. In the agile methodology the story point value is generally an estimate that you set when grooming your backlog. If you want to know "actual" effort expended to could use work logging to track time spent on issues. During your retrospectives you could analyze the story points vs. actual time logged if you want to try to be more "accurate" at your story point estimation in the future. Keep in mind story points are not meant to represent an absolute value. They are a relative value; a story with 5 story points will take relatively more effort than stories with less than 5 story points. But it is not intended to translate to a literal effort amount.

If you really want to track both an estimate and an actual value for Story points in issues for a Company Managed project you have to create a new Custom field for use in the Company Managed projects. If you opt to go that route I would strongly recommend that you give the new Custom field a unique name. Having multiple custom fields with identical names, especially across Company and Team Managed projects, can lead to unexpected results when filtering data.

The Estimate Statistics field will allow you to select any Custom field (defined through Settings > Issues > Custom Fields) that is of type Number. You will not be able to select Number fields that are available only in Team Managed projects.

If you don't see the default "Story Points" field in that list double check that the field is still present in Settings > Issues > Custom Fields. If it is, then something has gone weirdly wrong in your environment and I'd recommend you contact Atlassian Support directly to try to resolve.