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Original Estimate to made mandatory for all Spaces

Amitava Chattopadhyay

Hi Team,

We need to update all Spaces - Jira workflows for all teams to mandate a non-zero Original Estimate value when any work is assigned. The purpose of this to ensure no task assigned to any developer without an estimate. Also developers must log time spent on each task.

This ensures everyone knows who worked on what task each day. Need assistance. Please help, Regards, Amitava

Accepted answers

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Gor Greyan

Hi @Amitava Chattopadhyay,

Welcome to the Community!

I would separate these into two requirements, because Original Estimate and Time Tracking are two different things in Jira.
If you want Original Estimate to be mandatory when work is assigned, the cleanest approach is a workflow validator on the relevant transition(s). Add the Field Required validator and select Original Estimate.
The Time Tracking field also needs to be available in the relevant field/screen configuration. However, if the actual goal is to ensure developers log time every day, making Original Estimate mandatory will not enforce that. Original Estimate only represents the expected effort, logged work is stored separately as Time Spent. For all spaces, I would avoid editing every workflow individually if they share workflows. Apply the validator to the shared workflows used by those spaces, then verify the workflow associations before publishing.

Regards,
Gor

Viswanathan Ramachandran

Hi,

I would rather start by requiring estimates on In Progress than on assignment. This prevents blocking triage/assignment while still ensuring no active work runs without an estimate.

If you're on company managed projects, you can add workflow validator for In Progress transition.

Amitava Chattopadhyay

Thank you both, Gor Greyan & Viswanathan Ramachandran.

Over the past few years several spaces created in mixed environment. We have both Scrum, as well as Kanban projects, in combination of Company Managed, as well as Team Managed. Let me check the methods as suggested by you.

I will revert if I need any further support, thank you so much for helping me out. Regards

Marc -Devoteam-

Hi,

To make sure original estimates are filled both @Gor Greyan and @Viswanathan Ramachandran are right.

Based on your response, you need to achieve some work, as this would require all spaces to be company managed. This is a you can't use the mandatory option on managed spaces as the admin could remove mandatory options from the workflow without you nowing it.

This ias Team managed spaces are individual containers, with no overall managed possibilities.

Gor Greyan

Dear @Amitava Chattopadhyay,

Happy to help you!

Let us know if you have any further questions regarding that implementation.

Also, if the answer was helpful, kindly ask you to accept it, as other community members have found it as resolved.

Regards,
Gor

Viswanathan Ramachandran

You can do this on team space via Automation rule. I tested in my personal space.

For ex: Setting this on In Progress transition is actually considered a best practice because it allows leads to assign tickets during backlog refinement/sprint planning, but strictly prevents developers from starting active work without an estimate.

Add Trigger: Work item transitioned
From Status: Leave blank
To Status: In Progress
In Condition, add JQL condition (originalEstimate is EMPTY OR originalEstimate <= 0)
Add anothercondition assignee is EMPTY OR originalEstimate is EMPTY OR originalEstimate <= 0
In Action, choose Transition Work item and set the Destination Status as To Do
In Action, choose Comment on Work item and add some comments for ex: Cannot Start Work: An Original Estimate is required before moving this task to In Progress or choosing an assignee.
Save the rule.

Testing and how it works

Create a work item, assuming it is in To Do state by default
Assign to someone without the original estimate and move to In Progress
You can see it will automatically puts back to To Do state and Unassigned state
See the comments section for the explanation

For team managed space, you need to look for comments as this is limitation. As an option,

Add an action in the rule: Send Slack message / Send Teams message directly to the user who dragged the ticket, giving them an instant chat ping.

Hope it helps

Josh

Hi Amitava, the estimate part is well covered above, so here is the second half of your question: making sure time actually gets logged, and seeing who worked on what each day.

1. Nudge or enforce logging (works in both company-managed and team-managed spaces). Two automation rules I've seen work well:

At close: trigger Work item transitioned to Done, JQL condition timeSpent IS EMPTY, then action Comment that mentions the assignee ("Please log your time on this item"). You can also transition it back, like Viswanathan's estimate rule, but most teams find a comment less disruptive.
Daily: a Scheduled rule (e.g. 5 PM on weekdays) with JQL statusCategory = "In Progress" AND timeSpent IS EMPTY that comments on or messages each assignee.

2. See the work behind yesterday's logs. worklogDate >= startOfDay(-1) AND worklogDate < startOfDay() lists every work item that had time logged yesterday. Add worklogAuthor = currentUser() for a personal "what did I log" filter.

One caveat before you build reporting on that: each JQL clause is checked on its own, so worklogAuthor = X AND worklogDate = Y can match an item where X logged time on a different day and someone else logged on Y. Filters show you which items had time logged. They don't give you hours per person per day. For that, the native options are the work item's Time tracking/worklog tab or pulling worklogs through the REST API into a spreadsheet.

If you'd rather not build that yourself, a timesheet app is the usual next step. We make one: Timesheets & Time Tracking for Jira (Aneto Hours). It shows hours by person, space and date from the worklogs you already have, filters by JQL, and lets you click through to the individual worklogs. Get the automation habits above in place first, though, because any report is only as good as the logging behind it.

Disclosure: I work at Aneto Software, which makes this app.

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