How can I remind developers to add estimates?

[Oliver Bock]

If the Version Workload Report is to be useful, all issues need to have estimates entered by the developers to whom they have been assigned. But how can I remind developers to add estimates? The best I can think of is to ask them to set up a filter like

timeoriginalestimate = EMPTY

and then subscribe to it daily. This is not a perfect solution because developers who have assigned estimates to all their bugs will still receive an irritating e-mail (and perhaps even on weekends), and because I have to convince the developers to set it up. Is there a better way?

[Oliver Bock · Accepted solution]

Atlassian keeps pestering me about this question, but nobody has come up with anything that, in my view, improves upon my original guess.

[Alex Perez]

You can modify your workflow to enforce that every issue should be estimated before resolved, or before assigned .. depending on your needs.

Take a look to Jira Suite Utilities and Jira Misc Workflow Extensions to add a Condition/Validator to check if the bug is estimated prior to allow its assignation or resolution.

HTH

[Oliver Bock]

Isn't this the same thing that Aaron suggested? I want the assignee to put an estimate in as soon as he is assigned the bug, or soon afterwards. That way I have an up-to-date idea of how far away the next milestone is. I could add an "Estimated" stage to the workflow, but without a reminder feature it will be easy for asignees to neglect estimation until they actually start work on the bug. In that world my next milestone is always just a few days away.

[Aaron Booth]

We used the JIRA workflow and created a status before it goes to developers called "Programming Estimate" where the developer MUST allocate an estimate on transition out of this status. This ensures that before it goes anywhere near actual development there is an estimate.

[Oliver Bock]

It's not that I don't want to see bugs without estimates, it's that I don't want there to be any bugs without estimates, at least not for long. I am trying to avoid "hidden" bugs which don't appear in project estimates.

[Alex Perez]

Olivier,

Yes ... essentially is the same as Aaron suggested. Modify the WF to insert a status before the programmers can log work. Use the outgoing transition to enforce the Estimation of the bug. This way they won't log anything until estimated.

Additionally you can create a filter with all bugs in status Assigned and Estimation = null, and subscribe your your programmers to that filter.

Or ... Modify the WF to email a notification to the assignee when then bug has completed the transition (open->assigned), to remind the assignee that he should inform the estimation ..

If you post your WF, we can help you with the changes

HTH