How to put in an estimate field for Subtasks?

[Ivan Lau]

This question is in reference to Atlassian Documentation: Learn to plan and estimate for scrum teams

I don't see how I can add that from the settings? I can see the Task one but not the Subtask one

[Pavel Andreevski · Accepted solution]

Here I prepared for you guys a step by step guide on how you can activate time estimates for subtasks with screenshots from a new Jira interface.

Check the link to google dock

Had to search a lot of info to understand this workflow. At the end, there are referrals to other problems and more from Jira manuals.

Hope it will be useful for you.

[Michael Owen]

Thank you Pavel this was exactly what I needed. 

[Tony Turner]

The google document helped me walk through the process of adding Time Tracking.  Thank you!

[Asha Kumari]

Thank you. This was really helpful for the quick turnaround.

[Marj Sales]

Your documentation helped a lot. Thank you very much!

[Tristan_Draaisma]

It says a lot that there are so many out there having to go here and make an entry... Maybe the UX team of Jira Software has to have another look at the way this is implemented

[Dang Thi Thuy Tien]

Hi, 
You can try with Hierarchical Calculation Field (https://marketplace.atlassian.com/apps/1219833/hierarchical-calculation-field)

Cheers,

[Smita]

I also have this issue where my estimates are under sub tasks and its not rolling up to the main task. So I am not able to see the estimated effort, time spent or remaining hours as long as I dont put it on subtask. But this is not helpful as its way too manual.

[v s]

Mauricio Thanks for the video...

Hello Everyone I have few queries
1) I don't see the settings under sub task if performed through the video (Story point set as 0) did anyone get that.
2) Also as I have read forums it says Task/Sub task need to be estimated in man hours... and no points.
Now when I set a Story say as 8 points and create sub task for same I see Log work option for sub task.There will be no Estimation option.
So what I get these are 2 entities 1 being a relative value and other being man hours...so we go ahead and estimate the sub task in hours and Story we give it some relative value?

I am new bee learning... Please advise... Thanks.

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

The problem with videos is that they go out of date in weeks, and are hence mostly useless as training material.

1) Settings are not under "sub tasks", they're in the administration section for "screens".  Go to the project administration and find the "issue type screen scheme" piece, descend into that, looking for the screens the sub-tasks use, and then add the time-tracking field into that.

2) You could do it in points, but time might be more useful.  Whichever you choose to use, remember that they do not get counted in a sprint because a partial completion of a story is irrelevant to saying whether you've achieved what you committed to.

[Mauricio Rueda]

Hello Guys,

The only thing what you have to do is to configure on the correct way... I suggest all of you watch my video... with English Subtitles... 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lf_tD8qh72c&t=44s

However, I give you an image to show the Estimations field in tasks and sub-task...  

[Amir Naderi]

you are the man Mauricio...!
Mucho gracias hermano

[Yugank Bhatnagar]

Pre-Condition

Copy a existing borad or create a new one before you perform any change sin live projects.So that you dont risk any existing work.

In the Board Configuration->Set the Estimation Statistic->Original Time Estimate

And Time Tracking as Remaining Estimate and Time Spent

Steps

1) Add a story to back log or active sprint.Say for example we move a story to an active sprint. Add estimate say for example 2w

2) To a Issue type-Story- Add a sub task

2) Click to view the Issue detail view for the Sub Task

3) Select More->Log Work

4) Input Time Spent is weeks,days or hours

5) You will see the Time Tracking section on the right hand side of the screen with progress bars for Estimated,Remaining and Logged work and with a option to include sub tasks or not.

You can also adjust the Remaining estimate as per your requirement. Just click on the + icon adajcent to Time Tracking section.

[Andrew O'Rourke]

I seem to have found a really weird solution to this.  If you go into Edit view for a Sub-task, you can click the ellipses on the upper right-hand corner and select "Log Work."  There, you can set the Remaining Estimate, but you have to put time in Time Spent, which is strange.  I just put 1 minute to appease the system.

If you want Tasks to be categorized by story, as I do, it seems that Sub-Tasks in JIRA are what I'd normally term "Tasks," so I guess this is the way to go?  Hope this is helpful.

[Andrew O'Rourke]

Ooof, I should caveat this: This does indeed assign that estimated time, but it does not chance the original estimate field, just remaining estimate.  If anyone knows how to change that original field, that info would be greatly appreciated!

[Peter Babinec]

I have exactly the same issue. Everybody claims there should be an estimate field for sub-task but I cannot manage to find one.

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

The default is that it is not there. 

As an admin, you can adjust the field configuration and/or screens so that it does appear on sub-tasks.  Off-the-shelf, all you need to do are the screens - add the "timetracking" field to the create and edit screens for sub-tasks in the project.

[Peter Babinec]

Thanks, I figured out I had no sufficient privileges for doing that. It is exactly as you say.

[Amir Naderi]

well unfortunately I dont have a PHD in computer science, hence cant even figure out how to make the most simple changes on this platform:( Love the heck out of it from a task management perspective but really wish their settings and help was ore user friendly. 

ok rant over, I digress...How do I go about adjusting the field config to be able to add time estimates to my ST?

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

It's the same principle, the sub-tasks are just another issue type.

However, you do need to be a little thoughtful when estimating sub-tasks.  If you're going to estimate on sub-tasks, you will find it best to not estimate at story level as soon as a sub-task has an estimate.

[Ivan Lau]

Thanks Nic, yes we are estimating on sub-task level so we need the Estimates field. I enabled Time Tracking and the estimate field in Story is enabled, but the Sub-task still doesn't get the Estimate field, can you elaborate how you enable that?

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

You need to check that the "time tracking" field is enabled in the field configuration for the sub-task type and that the field is on the screens that you are using for the sub-task types.

[Ivan Lau]

Hi Nic, thanks for the pointer, got it; however, there's no options to set it to estimate as Story Points? I've configured it to use Story Point for estimation in "Board->configure->estimation" and set "Time Tracking to None" because I just want to count all estimates in story point when I move the sub task to done.

So how do I put in estimates as Story Point for sub-tasks??

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

Right, well, story points don't roll up to the parent issues at all, so you do need to be careful with those.

The estimation can be set on the board in the general configuration - you should have the option of estimates or a drop-down list of all number fields (including story points)

See the first diagram on https://confluence.atlassian.com/jirasoftwarecloud/configuring-estimation-and-tracking-764478030.html 

[Földes László]

How can you set the Estimate for a Sub-Task type if:

• Estimate can only be turned on Scrum board
• Scrum board does not show Sub-Task

Adding the Time Tracking field didn't help, the "Where is my field?" helper tells me that the field should be on the screen I'm viewing, but it is not there. When viewing a Task, the field is there.

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

I don't think your questions make sense, please re-read the original answer and comments, as they directly contradict your statements, as does the way JIRA works.

[Philip O'Gorman]

I have the same issue, the only way I can add an estimate to a sub task is when it is in an active sprint. Thats the only place the estimate field get exposed for edit

[Kyle Sawatsky]

No further information on this? I have the same issue as Philip. If you add subtasks to stories while they are in the backlog, it is literally impossible to estimate them. When you navigate to the page that is like https://xxxxx.atlassian.net/browse/[subtaskidentifier] there is no estimate field there.

And since you can't see subtasks on the Backlog view like you can on the Active Sprints view, you can't do it there either.

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

Same answer - when doing Scrum, don't estimate on sub-tasks.

[Philip O'Gorman]

After looking at this, I agree it is not a good idea to put estimates on subtasks

[Dennis]

That's kind of an ideological thing (should I be allowed to work in an agile team and estimate their tasks also on sub-level) enabling the effort estimation also on subtasks would be nice to have for me - but using Tasks and linking them is also an option. 

[Rajeev Muraleedharan]

I have been evaluating this tool to recommend this for my organization who recently started scrum. But I am confused since slicing a task into minute level and time tracking it is the basic and effective method of scrum. This gives a picture on where the developer is stuck (on which sub task) and the scrum master can facilitate him on a better way.

The estimates of subtasks should rollup to show the storie's estimation. I am not sure whethere I am missing to find that option to enable estimates for subtasks.

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

The option is there, as described above.  But it won't help you with Scrum - JIRA Software ignores estimates on sub-tasks, so you'll end up with some very odd looking numbers.

[Pedro Tauk]

Nic. I dont think you have read propperly in order to undestand the matter here. We want and need to estimate time on subtasks, since this is the point of creating subtasks. So we need to estimate it on backlog, before we start the sprint, but the field is available only on the boads.

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

Yes, I completely understand what is happening.

People are estimating time on subtasks.  Scrum in Jira Software does not support that, it ignores the estimates on subtasks because you are committing to stories, not parts of stories.

[Pedro Tauk]

I am currently breaking my stories at a development level using subtasks. And the subtasks can have multiple assignee. I was able to put the time on the subtasks and the result was the total amount of time of the task for the task assignee, regardless of the time division on the subtasks. But ok, maybe its wrong. But how do you suggest I do the sub tasks? How do I break a story into development parts. Or, how do I use the subtasks properly. Am I using jira wrong?

[Andre Weathers]

Hey @Nic Brough -Adaptavist-, let's consider this. I have a user story that has 3 subtasks: design, development, and QA. The design, development, and QA teams provide their time estimates for the user story and we proceed to plan a future sprint. 

Note that were using time based estimates for all and not story points. When we add the user story to a future sprint, the subtasks have clear estimates but the user story shows as unestimated (see initial image from @Pavel Andreevski above). 

If you leave the user story without an estimate, then you get all sorts or errors/warnings when you start/stop the sprint. If you add the summation of your subtask estimates as your user story estimate, then your time estimates are 2x and reports and measures are useless.

The ideal solution would be for the user story estimate to take the subtask estimates into account when planning and for applicable reports. Using @Pavel Andreevski image above, the estimate, remaining, and remaining sum would all be equal to 1d 30m (sum of all of the subtasks).

We're experimenting now with using 0m estimates at the story level, but based on some of the reports/widgets that we use, progress numbers are useless.

Hope that this helps to explain a real use case a bit better.

[Andre Weathers]

Hey @Nic Brough -Adaptavist-, let's consider this. I have a user story that has 3 subtasks: design, development, and QA. The design, development, and QA teams provide their time estimates for the user story and we proceed to plan a future sprint. 

Note that were using time based estimates for all and not story points. When we add the user story to a future sprint, the subtasks have clear estimates but the user story shows as unestimated (see initial image from @Pavel Andreevski above). 

If you leave the user story without an estimate, then you get all sorts or errors/warnings when you start/stop the sprint. If you add the summation of your subtask estimates as your user story estimate, then your time estimates are 2x and reports and measures are useless.

The ideal solution would be for the user story estimate to take the subtask estimates into account when planning and for applicable reports. Using @Pavel Andreevski image above, the estimate, remaining, and remaining sum would all be equal to 1d 30m (sum of all of the subtasks).

We're experimenting now with using 0m estimates at the story level, but based on some of the reports/widgets that we use, progress numbers are useless.

Hope that this helps to explain a real use case a bit better.

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

I don't think the posting above has quite understood the problem, as that still runs straight into the problem that your sprint estimates are broken, and you're failing to meet the "deliver or do not" that scrum is based on.

[Andre Weathers]

Hey @Nic Brough -Adaptavist-, that seems to run counter to your suggestion above:

However, you do need to be a little thoughtful when estimating sub-tasks.  If you're going to estimate on sub-tasks, you will find it best to not estimate at story level as soon as a sub-task has an estimate.

In my example, we're committing to "deliver" the user story with subtasks that have been vetted and estimated, but the current functionality of Jira does not take those estimates into account when sprint planning. 

This seems pretty basic and straight forward to understand, but it seems like Jira was really built for and optimized for story points and not time estimates. Otherwise, this functionality seems like a no-brainer to include and have work properly. 

I'd be interested for you to analyze how the scenario using image that @Pavel Andreevski provided above should play out in sprint planning. In other words, what are the expected/best practices for planning user stories if you're using subtasks with time estimates, so that reporting and other functionality works properly and is accurate. 

[Andre Weathers]

Hey @Nic Brough -Adaptavist-, just following up to see what your suggestion/guidance would be in this case. 

As an update on experiment of using 0m estimation on the user story, the reports are way off and pretty much useless.