If you’ve ever tried to sum story points in Jira, you’d have found out the hard way that it’s not always the easiest process. Whether you’re looking to sum up the story points in your project, or roll up story points to parent issues, it’s not obvious what your options are.
Jira does provide some options to determine the story point total of your project or issue. But it can take some leg work.
1) Use Automation to Sum Story Points From Sub-Tasks In Jira
Atlassian’s automation template library is a relatively new option you can use to sum story points in Jira. It lets you create custom automations for setting the story points field based on the sum of it’s child issues.
This is a particularly good option for setting an issue’s story point field to be the story point total of it’s subtasks.
This might be the best option for you if:
- You don’t want to use an external add-on. This feature is built directly into Jira.
- You only want to sum story points from sub-tasks to parent issues. You have no interest in summing story points up further to parent Epics.
- You want the summed up story point values to be available in JQL queries.
- You don’t care about being able to visualise your story points rolling up multiple levels.
However, Jira’s automation feature doesn’t do everything. Jira automation feature might not be for you if:
- You want to sum story points to Epics from child issues. This feature primarily sums story points from sub-tasks to parent issues.
- You want to sum completed story points to parent issues. If you want to get an idea of how far along each issue is based on the story points completed completed by it’s children, you’re out of luck.
- You want to visualise how your story points roll up to each level. It’s one thing to sum story points up one level, but what if you want to see how your story points flow up multiple levels in your Jira issue hierarchy? Or even have them roll up to the project or filer level? Unfortunately this is not possible with the automation feature alone.
- You want a percentage completion report based on completed story points
2) Use the Backlog To Sum Jira Story Points
Another option to sum up story points is using the backlog view. This is great if you’re only interested in summing up the story points values of a sprint.
There’s also an option to select Epics so you can look at the summed up story points values of individual Epics. You can select individual Epics and see the summed up story points values of each one.
The backlog view to sum story points is great if:
- You don’t want to use an external add-on.The backlog view comes native with Jira so there’s on need for an external add-on.
- You’re only interested in seeing the story point totals of your backlog or sprint. The backlog view will sum up the story points in a your backlog or sprint.
- You don’t mind clicking into an Epic and doing a bit of legwork to work out the story point total. Once you click into an Epic, you can manually add the story points in the sprint and backlog to get the total.
- You don’t care about being able to visualise your story points on multiple levels. You just want to be able to see the summed up story points values of individual issues, not necessarily take a zoomed out view.
The backlog view is not without it’s limitations. It might not be for you if:
- You don’t want to count story points in a sprint and in the backlog to get the story point total of your Epics. While the story point total of each Epic can be worked out from this view, you need to add up the story points in the backlog and in a sprint to get the total. This can be tedious.
- You don’t want to calculate the story point total of your Epics one at a time. This method doesn’t let you see all the Epics story point totals on a single page.
- You want a report on the percent story points completed. If you want a story points completion report on your Epics or your project, unfortunately this isn’t possible using the backlog view.
- You want story point totals to be available for use in JQL.
3) Use Agile Docs to Sum Jira Story Points to Parent Issues Or Filters
If the free options above don’t cut it for you, we made another option. Agile Docs is a simple way to sum story points in Jira which requires no set up.
This is a great option if you want comprehensive progress reports based on summed up story point values.
This options sums up story points from sub-tasks, all the way up to the filter level. You can view rolled up story point values and percent progress reports at each level.
Agile Docs gives you a Jira tree view of all your issues on a single page. Being able to see all your issue hierarchies on a single page is incredibly useful understanding how all the parts of your project fit together.
You get access to Jira Epic progress reports based on rolled up estimate values which can be both viewed in issues and used in JQL queries.
Agile Docs is ideal if:
- You want to sum story points to Epics and Filters. Agile Docs sums story points up to both Epics and Filters.
- You don’t want to do any set up. Agile Docs requires no set up.
- You want to visualise how your story points roll up to each level on a single page. Agile Docs is ideal if you not only want the summed up story point values of each level, but also want to be able to view each level on a single page.
- You want summed up story points values to be stored in a field and used in JQL queries. Agile Docs stores the story point total and story points completed of your Epics in a field. This field can be displayed in issues or used in JQL queries.
Agile Docs might not be the best option for you if:
- You don’t want to use an external add-on. Agile Docs needs to be installed from the Atlassian Marketplace.
Conclusion
There are many options to sum Jira story points. Consider the unique needs of your team when deciding which of the above options to go with.
If you’re using time tracking for estimation, there are a couple of good options you can use to sum time estimates and generate Jira work log reports.