Adding and showing story points for tasks

[Nick Coster]

My team are not building software for external customers. We want to use Jira for internal task and progress tracking. 

This means that many of our activities are not User Stories. They are Tasks. 

However I would like the team to get in to the habit of estimating the effort required to perform the tasks. 

Unfortunately I cannot see a way of displaying and using story points in Tasks, in the same way that they are used in Stories. 

I am using Jira Cloud.

Thanks

[Nick Coster · Accepted solution]

Thanks for pointing me in the general direction. However, your answer was a bit like RTFM.

The answer that I needed (now that I have worked it out) is:

1. Select the Jira icon > Jira settings > Issues.
2. Under FIELDS, select Custom Fields.
3. Find the Story Points Field and note the Issue type(s) that are associated with it.
4. To allow Tasks (or Bugs) to use Story Points open the three dot menu and select "Configure".
5. Under the heading "Default Configuration Scheme for Story Points" select "Edit Configuration".
6. Finally, find the heading "Choose applicable issue types" and select the Issue "Task" issue type is selected (along with Stories and Epics).

I have found lots of very very hard to follow posts like yours that have really wasted a lot of my time. Yours was the best but still hard work to follow.

As a Community Champion I would suggest that start by assuming that I have already searched google, and the community boards for an answer, and instead offer specific and useful help.

Regards,

Nick Coster

[Alexey Matveev]

Number 5 in your answer relates for you configuration of Jira. It may not work for other users.

Anyway thank you for your answer.

[Vinod Sharma]

Thank you. Worked for me. 

[Thiwanka]

Thank you. It's work for me.

[Allan Daly]

Super helpful. Thank you for taking the time to explain this so clearly. You rock.

[dbergstein]

@Nick Coster Thanks for explaining so clearly!! I didn't understand the Jira documentation.

[Timothy_Stirling]

Thanks, very helpful but I did have to dig around a little more to get this to work.

I think we wouldn't necessarily need Story Points for Tasks if tasks could be specifically made as a child of a User Story

[Nick Coster]

The particular use case for me was unrelated to the user story format, otherwise I totally agree.  This was noted in the original question.

Since I posted the original in 2018 there may have been some changes that have left my answer out of date.

[prakashkarkee]

@Nick Coster  Thank you very much it help me as a beginner. Though there is little change in 2020 jira cloud but process are quite similar.

[Andrea Rivera]

@Nick Coster Thanks, I was really struggling with that one, appreciate the clear steps. 

[lisa]

Thank you for the original answer! Very clear steps I appreciate! 

[Joost van Schie]

Thanks!

[León Dos]

Thanks! it works perfect! Thanks for explaining so clearly!

[Danny O'Donovan]

There are other ways to do this depending on your design flow but this method incurs minimal cognitive load. 

[Nick Coster]

Thanks Danny.

For my brain, minimising cognitive load is a priority!

--Nick

[agnesa 1989]

@Nick Coster could explain more where these fields are visible:

Select the Jira icon > Jira settings > Issues

? I cannot find them so it's still unclear for me how to see Story Point in the Issue field :(

[Anthony Lombardo]

@Nick Coster 100 thank you's!

[Parker Schlank]

@Nick Coster Thank you!  Seriously saved me so much time with your answer (and you made me laugh).  Cheers.

[Jacquelin Tripp]

@Nick Coster Solution is still working today.  Thank you.

[Krista Phillips]

Thanks @Nick Coster . I agree whole heartedly with your request for detailed click sequences to solve issues.

[Ronald Davis]

Works for me!

[Ramón Orraca]

Thanks! This worked for me as well, I just had to make changes on a group of settings called context. I suppose this is only an update in the UI.

[Brenda Oliveira]

thanks!

[Jaap Meijer]

Hi @Nick Coster thanks for the explanation. My missing link is still: I can enter the story points now in tasks, but in sprint planning, the estimated story points don't count. The numbers in the sprint header are still zero's. Did you and your team solve this problem too?

[Todd Dowty]

@Jaap Meijer I have the exact same thing. I assume you've not been able to resolve this? 

[Mike Conway]

As Nick mentioned in his answer, Jira has changed a few things since this was initially posted.  For those who are searching for how to do this and might have stumbled across this post like I did, I figured I'd leave an updated answer for the convenience of others since this was the top result on Google when I searched. Here's how I did it in Jira Cloud as of February 2021.

• Go to Jira Settings and then the "Issues" settings.
• Select "Custom fields" under the "Fields" section on the left menu bar.
• Find the "Story Points" field in the list and click on "X context(s)" under the "Screens and contexts" column.
• It will show you the issue types for which the field is currently available.  Click on "Create, edit or delete contexts."
• On the next screen, click the "Edit context" button next to to the scheme you're using.  (I only had one, but you may have more.)
• On the next screen, in the "Choose applicable issue types" box, select all of the issue types you want to have the field.
• Click the "Modify" button at the bottom when you're done.

You'll still have to add the field to the screens you're using and whatnot, but if you've already done that and it's not showing up because it's not applied to the specific issue type, this should fix it.

Thanks to Nick for his original answer that pointed me in the right direction.  Hope this saves someone a few minutes.

[Nick Coster]

Thanks Mike for keeping the response up to date. I have been amazed at how popular my answer has become. It just goes to show that it is valuable to share our learnings with the community as we go. 

[Houmam]

Thanks Mike, it was really helpful.

[Anoesj]

Thanks!

[Gordon Jones]

All of these worked to get Story Points added to my Jira Cloud environment.  Thank you.  NOW .... My challenge is getting the Sprint efforts to drive towards zero like my Sprint Burndown Chart states.   

My Dev team also if very task oriented like the original post from @Nick Coster   I read somewhere that in my workflow story points should decreased as items are marked in a Resolved/Done status.

So I made my "Ready for Deployment" as a Resolved type status as items are staged for release.  My team completes tasks throughout the Sprint and items are then deployed on next to last day and Marked DONE if they also pass QA And or Product Owner approvals from the LIVE environments.

I thought changing my Ready for Deployment to a Resolved status would fix this issue,  But no.  My Remaining Sprint line stays pegged through the sprint cycle until fully closed on last day.  It kind of defeats the purpose of the Chart.

What am I missing?

Thanks

[Mike Conway]

I would create a new thread for this question, as it doesn't really fit the topic of this thread and likely won't get many views since this one is already closed with an accepted answer.  It will also help others in the future who may have the same question as you, since they'll be searching for your topic and not this one.

[agnesa 1989]

@Mike Conway Are those fields are available for non-admin project leads? where JIRA settings are accessible?

[Mike Conway]

I'm pretty sure you have to be a Jira admin to change these settings.  The custom fields and such are an account-level thing.

The settings are under the gear icon in the upper right corner next to your name.  If you don't see it, then you don't have the necessary permissions.

[David Beiko]

Thank you so much Mike!

[Satish Londhe]

Thank you, it works for me.

[Scott Germaise]

Just updating this in cases anyone using Next Gen struggles to find this answer as I did. Apparently, this has changed. At least as of March, 2021, this answer worked for me:

https://community.atlassian.com/t5/Jira-Core-questions/Adding-Story-Points-to-a-Next-Gen-Scrum-Board-User-Story/qaq-p/911744

Here is the short answer from that page, but you should probably check out the whole answer yourself.

"There is no Estimation on the Agile Board for next-gen; the boards cannot be configured at all aside from adding columns and a bit of very basic automation.

To add the Story Points field to next-gen issue types, you don't need to do anything with the field context, nor do you need to manually add it to any screens. Go to Project Settings -> Features, then turn on the Estimation toggle. This will make Story Points visible on your issue screens."

[Alexey Matveev]

Hello,

You should add the story points field to the screens for the Task issue type.

You can find more info here how to add a custom field to a screen:

https://confluence.atlassian.com/adminjiracloud/adding-editing-and-deleting-a-custom-field-776636410.html

[Jim Tafur]

Worked for me.  Thanks!

[Katrina Claassen]

Thanks for the help.  Since this was written Jira has changed a few things, example under the three dot menu you no longer find "Configure" it is now "Contexts and default value", then under the heading "Default Configuration Scheme for Story Points" select "Edit Context" instead of "Edit Configuration". 

I appreciate the detailed explanation! That helped a lot!

[Mateusz Janus]

DEAR LORD! THANKS FOR THAT!

[Nick Coster]

Glad it could help!