Enable estimation
This page is for team-managed projects
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If you’re in a company-managed project, check out these company-managed project articles instead.
More about the difference between company-managed and team-managed projects.
Calculate your team's velocity by estimating each work item in your backlog. You can currently estimate work using story points and time. If you don’t select an estimation statistic, work will be measured by the “work item count”.
Time estimation has landed in team-managed projects
We’ve just rolled out time estimation to team-managed projects. When you go into your features in project settings, you’ll find both story points and time available as an estimation statistic.
Once enabled, time estimates will show up for each work item on the board and backlog. Your backlog will also show the total time estimated for a sprint, too.
Our APIs opened up, allowing marketplace vendors to upgrade their tools, and create a rockin' experience for you. You can also create a JQL search based on duration. For example:
project=”NAME” and originalEstimate > 1m order by created DESC
Original estimation in the sprint burndown, burn up, and velocity reports has arrived, too.
Enable estimation for your team-managed project
If you’re not already there, navigate to your team-managed software project.
Next to your project's name in the sidebar, select More actions (•••), then Project settings.
Select Features.
Enable the Estimation feature.
Once Estimation is enabled, you can select whether to use Story points or Time.
When first enabled, the Story point or Original estimate fields are automatically added to your work items.
Disabling the estimation feature, or removing the field from a work type won’t affect any pre-existing estimation data on your work items.
The data stays hidden and can be surfaced again if the relevant estimation feature is enabled, or the field is added to the work type again.
You’ll need to manually configure the Original estimate field however if you remove it from your work items, then re-enable it at the feature-level.
Add estimates to epic work types
When you enable the Estimation feature, the Story point estimate will be available to all standard-level work types. The Original estimate field is always available.
You can also add these fields to epic work types. Learn how to customize fields in a work item.
To manually add the Original estimate field:
If you’re not already there, navigate to your team-managed project.
Next to your project's name in the sidebar, select More actions (•••), then Project settings.
Select Work types.
From the Fields panel on the rightmost side of your screen, select Original estimate.
Drag, then drop the field where you’d like it to appear.
The Original estimate field goes hand-in-hand with the Time tracking field. To add Original estimates, you'll also need to add the Time tracking field.
From your project menu, select Create, then Configure fields.
Select Custom, and then Time tracking.
How to estimate work items
To estimate a work item on your board or backlog:
Select and expand a work item to view its details.
In the Story point estimate field, enter a valid estimate. Story point estimates must be numerical but can include decimal points.
In the Original estimate field, enter a numerical figure based on a unit of time. Available units are weeks, days, hours, or minutes. For example, 1w 2d 3h 4m.
The estimation field is available wherever you can open a work item, such as the backlog, board, and roadmap (if you've added the Story point estimate or Original estimate field to epic work types).
View estimates in reports
The estimates entered on your project's work items will affect your project's reports. More about reports in team-managed projects.
Learn more
Estimation takes place in the backlog. Read more about maintaining a healthy, well-organized backlog.
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