How can I configure the Scrum Sprint to accept estimatives in sub-tasks instead of stories?

Question

I have one project in which we have estimatives for sub-tasks only and the sprint sizes are based on these estimativas. However, I'm not able to set up my boards and sprints properly because Jira seems to look only for estimatives in stories.

What I have tried so far:

- Enable Story Points field for sub-tasks, fill this field with our estimatives and start the sprint. Jira tells me the estimative is empty.

- Create a custom field "Size", numeric, set it up as the estimation statistic inside Estimation configuration, fill this value

No matter what I tried, the sprint is always starting "empty" unless I put estimatives for the stories.

Israel Heringer L. de Castro · Answer

This is so bad, but thank you very much for the answer Nic!

Unfortunately, I won't be able to migrate the company to Jira anymore :/

Nic Brough -Adaptavist- · Answer

You don't.

JIRA Software does not support estimating sub-tasks.  Even tricks that roll up the data on to a parent don't work because it double-reports it.

The only trick I've seen that works is code that detects when a user puts an estimate on a sub-task, reads it off, adds it to the parent (or subtracts it, depending on what particular roll-up rules the users want), and then deletes it from the sub-task.

You need to estimate at the story level.