Sub-task Story point causing problems in active sprint insights info

Garth Bond

Our dev team have started using sub-tasks extensively within Jira Premium. Since enabling the use of sub-tasks and associating story points to sub-tasks, the active Sprint Insights features is double counting the sub-tasks story poits and showing an incorrect representation.

 

What can be done about this?

Nagabharana S

Hello @Garth Bond ,

This is a known behavior in Jira Premium — when story points are assigned to sub-tasks, the Sprint Insights (especially velocity and burndown charts) can double-count story points. This happens because:

🧠 Parent issues (like Stories or Tasks) and their sub-tasks are both counted if both have story points.

What You Can Do:

1. Recommended Best Practice:

Assign story points only at the parent level (Story, Task, Bug), and not on sub-tasks.
This prevents double-counting and ensures reports reflect actual effort correctly.

📌 Sub-tasks are usually meant to break down work, not to hold estimates.

2. Use Advanced Roadmaps (if you must use sub-task points):

If your team must estimate at sub-task level, use Advanced Roadmaps or custom dashboards with JQL + gadgets to build accurate reports that don't double-count.

3. Adjust Your Reporting Approach:

• Use custom JQL filters to exclude sub-tasks from reporting gadgets.

• Use Automation rules to roll up sub-task story points to the parent and clear the sub-task field.

What Doesn't Work:

• Jira out-of-the-box reports (e.g., Sprint Reports, Velocity Charts) do not have a built-in option to exclude sub-task points automatically if points exist on both levels.

🛠 Suggested Fix (if retroactively needed):

You can run an automation rule to:

• Sum up all sub-task points

• Copy to parent issue

• Clear the sub-task points