Is there a way to create a new way to track issue completion ?

Question

I have a client who want to track issue completion by sub-tasks completion. In other words, he wants to have a burndow chart moving every time a sub-tasks is created.

I was able to put in place a workaround by crating a custom field and having this field automatically updated every time a sub tasks is created/completed/deleted, and using this custom fields as a estimation field fir the burndow chart.

The problem, of course, is that every change to this field is shown as a scope change.

As currently, Jira only manage Time tracking, I suggested that we can set a default time estimation to every task, but the client was against it, as he think that the unit used in burndown char for that was misleading.

So my question : is there a way, using the Jira Java API, to add a new tracking statistic ? If so, can you direct me to documentation on how to do it ?

Nic Brough -Adaptavist- · Answer

Adding a new tracking statistic is not going to help. Two reasons:

You can already use either estimates of time, or story points or any other numeric field.  Any other statistic isn't going to make much sense, because it's going to need to come back to a number whatever you do with it.

Burndown is calculated on the estimates on issues at a parent level and sub-tasks are ignored.  Whatever you use for the estimates, the calculation is purely based on whether the estimate is on an issue that is done or not done.  Any change of estimate is change of scope.  Adding a new statistic type would still have the same effect - each issue is either open or done, and a change would be change of scope.