This is a ridiculous limitation. I've spent hours try to build an automation to overcome this limitation to no avail. I want my team to be able to see the total estimate including the story/task estimate and the combined subtask estimates at the parent task or story level. Why isn't this an out of the box feature? I can't be the only person that needs this.
You're definitely not the only one. This comes up quite a bit, especially for teams that estimate both parent issues and subtasks and want that total visible directly on the board.I'd be interested to hear whether anyone has found a clean native workaround. It seems like a good candidate for a feature request, especially now that Jira is investing more in calculated fields like the new Formula Fields.
Hi @Xenia Chilkowich,
One correction to the replies above, as of late October 2026: team-managed spaces do have Σ Original Estimate, and not only in list views. We tested a team-managed space last week with a Story estimated at 2h and subtasks at 3h and 5h, and Σ showed 10h ("1 day, 2 hours" with an 8-hour day).
Where your team can see it without a rule:
On the Story itself, nothing native shows that total. The Original estimate field holds only the Story's own value, and the Time tracking field (with Include subtasks) adds subtask time to logged and remaining, not to the original estimate. So a field like your Total original estimate is still the way to show it there.
The rule behind it can be simpler, though. {{issue.Σ Original Estimate}} returns the Story's own estimate plus its subtasks in one value, in seconds: 36000 (10h) in our test, in team-managed as well. For comparison, {{issue.subtasks.timetracking.originalEstimateSeconds.sum}} gave 28800 (8h), because it leaves out the Story's own 2h.
{{issue.Σ Original Estimate}}
{{issue.subtasks.timetracking.originalEstimateSeconds.sum}}
The full test, including how the totals behave at the Epic level, is in this article: How time and estimates roll up in Jira Cloud: from subtasks to Stories and Epics.
Hello @Xenia Chilkowich
Did you tried this ?
Jira automation template showing how to sum up story points | Atlassian
Jira has a native aggregate field for this called Σ Original Estimate, available on company-managed Scrum and Kanban boards. You can enable it via Board settings → Card layout for both your Backlog and Active sprints views.
It acts as a read-only aggregate that automatically sums the parent item's estimate with all of its subtasks (for example, a 2-hour story with subtasks of 3 and 4 hours will display as 9 hours). Keep in mind this is purely for visual tracking on the card and won't overwrite the parent's own editable Original Estimate field.
Cheers,
Arek 🤠
I am aware of this field. The limitation is that I cannot add it to the issue layout so it's only visible in list views. I need my team to be able to see this value when they open the relevant task or story. Also I am in a team managed project, which I am coming to see has many silly limitations. Thanks anyway
I ended up creating a custom field called Total original estimate and two convoluted automations that added up the original estimate on the parent task/story and the sum of any associated subtask. to populate the field on my card layouts. It took me hours of back and forth iterations with ChatGPT and only worked on items updated after I deployed the flow. It was very painful. I had to create a one time automation to update all of my existing issues. Teams managed projects have some ridiculous and painful limitations for things that seem very necessary to manage p.s. I tried to do this with Rovo but gave up. My experience with Rovo is it promises many things and sends me on wild goose chases only to end up telling me it can't actually do something.
Σ Original Estimate exists on company-managed Scrum and Kanban boards. You add it in Board settings → Card layout. It is a read-only display of parent plus subtask estimates. It does not write into the parent’s Original Estimate field, and it is not available on the issue layout when you open the work item.
Team-managed projects do not get that field at all. There is no setting that puts a rolled-up original estimate on the issue view in that project type.
If the team needs original / spent / remaining on the parent while they are looking at the work, that is a hierarchy view over the real issues, not a card-layout field.
Disclosure: I work on Aneto WBS.
Listing: https://marketplace.atlassian.com/apps/1219682/wbs-work-breakdown-structure
Yes I learned the hard way that team-managed projects do not and in general I am unhappy with all the limitations of team-managed projects. I had to write a complex automation that caused me to exceed our flow limit. I wish JIRA would not limit team managed boards as much as it does. There is much room for improvement.
Hi, @Xenia Chilkowich!
The Σ Original Estimate field mentioned above only exists on company-managed boards, and only in the card layout, so in a team-managed space the native route really is what you built: a number field on the parent plus an automation rule that sums {{issue.subtasks.timetracking.originalEstimateSeconds.sum}} (seconds, so divide by 3600 for hours), and a one-off rule to backfill existing work items. Each run counts against your monthly automation limit on Free and Standard, and you need one rule per level if you also want it on the epic.
Disclosure: I built Sumline, a Marketplace app that shows this on the work item view itself, in the Details column and a panel, in team-managed spaces too. One honest difference: when a parent and its subtasks both carry estimates it counts one level (children by default), and lists the parent's own value as not counted, so it won't add them into a single total.
Thank you for the update. My real challenge is I have to run automation to maintain this and we have very limited automation credits :(
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