How can I assign story points to the Task level?

barbarat December 1, 2014

I've seen documentation on assigning points to the sub-task level. How do I assign points to a task? Currently my flow is to go to the story, add field > select Story Points and enter points.

For Tasks, there is no option to add Story Points to it.

2 answers

17 votes
Nic Brough -Adaptavist-
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December 1, 2014

You need to change the field context for Story Points - check that is set as valid for the right issue types.  Go to Admin -> Issues -> Custom fields to check and change it.  You may also need to add it to screens and check the field configuration

Alex Benavides May 19, 2016

Thank you smile The answer was in Custom Fields, indeed

Ismet Zafar November 29, 2016

If we use custom fields for story points in tasks, can we use those custom fields in Burn Down/up reports?

Nic Brough -Adaptavist-
Community Leader
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November 29, 2016

Yes, the board will use whatever field you choose.

Ali Levin July 17, 2017
Alex Lehneis October 4, 2017

Thanks Nic!

Ali_Kazmi January 30, 2019

Sorry but I am not a huge fan of assigning "story points" to a task.  Remember, at the end of iteration, a story is either complete or incomplete ... there is no percentage of complete.  Therefore story points  are, in my opinion, assigned to story only. Tasks and sub- tasks  stray inside a story but without story points.  

 

If some tasks are worth allocating  story points then consider changing it to a story. 

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Nic Brough -Adaptavist-
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January 30, 2019

Nor am I - I just answered the question without judging why they were asking.  Story points on sub-tasks won't work for Scrum.

Well, not without code, and even then, it won't do what most people think - as you say "there is no 'partial', a story is done, or it is not.  So the story points on sub-tasks don't matter to completeness.

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Daniel Sputa April 9, 2019

true is that tasks in agile should have time allocated instead story points because it is a specific work already. Story points are more top-down estimates.  However, people should use it the way that works best for them, and not everyone is doing pure scums...

Wayne Vetrone April 26, 2019

I understand the argument of stories having points but then how can you gauge whether the assignee is staying on time.  We have stories that all have tasks (not sub-tasks).  For example, UI, middle, backend, testing.  Each task has points associated with it.  At the end of the sprint we run a report to see how many points each person finished. 

Is there a different approach, we can take?

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Paul Decoursey July 9, 2019

I am a fan of assigning points to tasks as a user story can span multiple sprints and it is important to understand what fits in a sprint. The best way to do that is by assigning points to the units of work that are being done within a sprint. You could argue that a story is too large if it doesn't fit in a sprint, but that doesn't take into account a story touching multiple areas and being done by different people at different times.

But that is the beauty of agile, there isn't a single dogmatic approach.

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0 votes
Niks Projects August 13, 2019

@Wayne Vetrone I am thinking, that we can assess that an assignee is staying on track or not by looking at the story points completed by the assignee rather than tracking at an hourly level. In order to track the points both Story and Task should have points

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