Is there a way to calculate hours into story points automatically in Jira?

[vildana_ermaya]

My team wants to estimate work simply in hours in an effort to measure how much dev time in total was spent on a project once completed and see if the investment was worth it. We currently use a story pointing system that's vague and confusing so it would be easier for us to just estimate in hours and minutes for smaller tasks. Is there a way in Jira to automatically set the story point value in the Story Points field if you enter hours somewhere. Not sure if that would be the original estimate or time tracking field. Not sure if these fields would help us.

Please let me know if there's a solution in Jira for this and if others have faced similar challenges. 

[Bill Sheboy]

Hi @vildana_ermaya 

If your team has decided to estimate in hours rather than story points, why not just ignore the story point field?

Or instead, put your hours in the story point field and then you could use the built-in reporting and charts (except you would know the values represent hours).

Best regards,

Bill

[vildana_ermaya]

@Bill Sheboy 

Thanks for the feedback! If we don't use the story point field what fields should we use just for estimating in hours? Original estimate? Time tracking? 

Which built-in reporting and charts would we use in your second example?

[Bill Sheboy]

Hi,

I was suggesting to enter your hours in the Story Point field.  Think of it this way: your team's story point values are hours.  The reporting (burn chart, velocity, etc.) will take care of themselves.

Also note: the team is estimating in hours.  This is not a time-tracking (actuals).  If you need that, please investigate the time tracking features and add-ons.

Thanks,

Bill

[Nic Brough _Adaptavist_]

I'd recommend the use of the original estimate field if you want hours - it's designed to handle lengths of time, unlike a plain number field. 

You could use a number field for "hours" too, but you would need to think in primitive decimals if you wanted to use parts of hours (1.25 = 1 hour 15 minutes, 1.33333333 hours = 1 hour 20 minutes and so-on)

[George Mihailoff]

@vildana_ermaya please check out our app, which does automatic actual time spent calculation and has flexible reporting. This is a very good business question beyond development where story points have no sense.