Why doesn't sub-task estimates roll-up at the story level?

[Kelly Gardner]

Hello 

We have estimated time (actual time in days, hours not story points) against the sub-tasks within a story. For some reason the story doesn't add all of these estimates together and you must manually do this yourself and add at the story level. Anybody know any shortcuts to this? My goal is to understand how much we've committed to at the sprint level but the only thing I can think of is going back and manually adding up the sub-task estimates...... help!

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

Welcome to the Community!

There are two parts to look at here, thanks to the complexity/flexibility of Jira.

> We have estimated time (actual time in days, hours not story points) against the sub-tasks within a story. For some reason the story doesn't add all of these estimates together

Actually it does.  If you are doing the estimation with the time-tracking field, which gives you "original estimate", "remaining estimate" and "time worked", amongst other things.   There is a panel on parent issues which shows you those, and includes a toggle for "include sub-tasks".  The sigma fields (the ones prefixed with Σ) enable reporting on the sub-tasks as well.

>My goal is to understand how much we've committed to at the sprint level 

You should not be putting sprint estimates on sub-tasks.  In a sprint, you pick some issues and commit to (trying to) deliver them at the end of the sprint.  You do not commit to doing bits of stories.  Sub-tasks in Jira are entirely a piece of a story, they are not individual items.  So the sprint estimate on a sub-task is utterly useless in itself, your sprint is measured by the stories it delivers, not bits of them.

In reality, there's no problem putting estimates on sub-tasks, it can be very useful (especially in planning, because sizing fragments of a story is usually easier than trying to estimate the whole unknown).  But if you're going to do that, you need to think of how the estimates should roll up into the parent, because only the parent is the deliverable and measurable thing.  Jira dodges the question by simply not doing anything about sub-tasks.

TLDR: If you are determined to put sprint estimates on sub-tasks, you are going to need to do some scripting or automation that can do the roll-up for you.  The most simple solution is just do Scrum properly, which means not estimating sub-tasks.

[Emanuel Y]

Thanks @Nic Brough  that's what I needed!

[Charbel Jarjour]

Hi Nic,
I hope you are doing great.
I have the same problem which I need to show the SUM sub-tasks estimated hours on a story level. can you guide me on this point? 

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

Look at the Σ fields for the estimates.

[IKP Reddy]

Hi @Nic Brough -Adaptavist- 

In Cloud the suggested filed is not available. By checking other posts, there is a automation rule suggested to achive the original estimate on parent.

Is it the only way to achieve sum of sub tasks original estimates on parent ? don't we have any default option in cloud Jira ?

[Zulfiqar Bin Zafar]

Hello,

You can resolve this issue by following below steps

Board Settings -> Card layout -> Choose 'Σ Original Estimate' / 'Σ Remaining Estimate'

Thanks & Regards,

Zulfiqar Bin Zafar

[Bas Prins]

Does this also exist in jira cloud? I can't find this original setting anywhere. God this feels over complicated for something as trivial as adding up hours... :)

[IKP Reddy]

yes. Same issue in cloud. some body suggested to use automation rule.

I don't see any default option to auto sum up the original estimate on parent based on sub-tasks even if you select include sub-task option