How can I stop my remaining estimate to be adjusted?

Question

In JIRA, we have a task for standups and meetings, obviously this task does not need an estimate, but it is useful to have time tracking on it.

However, when I log time on this issue, the remaining estimate either becomes N/A (first time I log time; cannot submit the time log) or it becomes minus however long I logged (also cannot submit the time log).

Is there a way I can create tasks that have no time estimate? Or do I need to adjust the remaining to 0 each time I log time on a meeting or standup?

Answer 1

Is there a way I can create tasks that have no time estimate?

Yes, it just depends on your Jira configuration. However, as you stated, once you have logged time on it, Jira deducts you're a time tracker... and thus, assume you are interested to know by when you no longer need to log time on it (i.e. you want to know your remaining).

Either you should not be logging time at all at these tasks or they should have an initial, ballpark estimation that will be decreasing every time you log time on it.

need to adjust the remaining to 0 each time I log time on a meeting or standup?

Is there any specific purpose on logging time on a task and still keeping the remaining fixed on zero if you know that tomorrow you're likely to be logging time on it again? In our project, we have such tasks just to have transparency on how much time such meetings absorbs from the team. They're never added into the iteration, but we can forecast our work more accurately and (have evidences to) say to any user that's not realistic to expect anyone to work 8h / day (sometimes, appeal to the common sense doesn't work).

Having that said, the answer for your question should be 'stop fighting something that's trying to help you' (or else, make it clear in your question why it must be always zero).

Cheers

Answer 2

I am fairly certain the answer is no, unfortunately. After researching it, it seems you cannot adjust the "Remaining estimate" automatically, or manually set it to not update.

That being the case I looked into a way to remove that value from your task, while leaving the ability to log time. My thought was you could create a new project, modify the fields to show what you want, create that task, and then port it into your board so it would have slightly different behavior.

The problem is that when adding or removing fields, both of the fields are added and removed concurrently under the "Time Tracking" field. There is no way to separate them, therefore also no way to have them function independently of each other.

See: https://confluence.atlassian.com/agile/jira-agile-user-s-guide/configuring-a-board/configuring-estimation-and-tracking for overall time tracking.

Adding or removing the fields is discussed here: https://answers.atlassian.com/questions/11439406/the-original-estimate-field-is-missing-when-creating-stories-and-sub-tasks

I don't use time tracking on my boards right now so it's possible there is some out of the box method I am missing, but given that the fields are added together I am not seeing any other way to accomplish it.