How is Progress calculated for work items: User Stories, Tasks, Bugs, Requests

Progress calculation

In Targetprocess, Effort for a User Story or any other assignable entity (Task, Bug, Request, Test Plan Run) is calculated as sum of Role Effort values for the given entity. Additionally, for a user story, sum of effort of its tasks is also included into total effort. More on this: How Effort is calculated for User Stories and other work items.

To reflect actual progress, Effort value is divided into Remaining (To Do) and Completed part.

Effort Completed

A calculated read-only value showing how much work (in ideal hours or points) is completed for an entity.

Additionally, for a user story, sum of effort completed of nested tasks is also included to the calculation.

Effort Remaining (EffortToDo)

A calculated read-only value showing how much work (in ideal hours or points) is remaining.

Additionally, for a user story, sum of effort to do values of nested tasks is also included to the calculation.

Time Spent

A calculated read-only value showing the sum of all Spent values (in actual hours) from Time records attached to an entity.

Additionally, for a user story, sum of time spent values of nested tasks is also included to the calculation.

People submit the time records using the Add Time function and provide Spent values in every record.

Time Spent value for a work item may differ from estimated Effort value, because effort is estimated in ideal hours or abstract story points and calculated from Role Effort values, while time spent is provided in actual hours from Times values.

Time Remain

A calculated read-only value showing the most recently provided Remaining value (in actual hours) from Time records attached for an entity.

Additionally, for a user story, sum of most recently provided time remaining values of nested tasks is also included to the calculation.

When Time records are submitted for more than one role, then most recent value is selected per each role, then sum of the selected values is included to the total Time Remain value on each level (User Stories, Tasks, Bugs).

People submit the time records using the Add Time function and provide Remain values in every record.

Time Remain value for a work item may differ from estimated Effort To Do value, because effort is estimated in ideal hours or abstract story points and calculated from Role Effort and Progress values, while time remain is provided from Times values.

Progress

The calculated read-only value showing overall progress for an entity.

When you estimate effort in ideal hours, the ratio between 1 ideal hour and 1 actual hour is different for each work item.

On views, Progress is shown in percents from 0% to 100%. In filters and reports, Progress varies from 0 to 1. Say, 50% of Progress is represented as 0.5 in filters and reports.

Progress of a User Story with multiple roles

Progress for any entity is calculated with the following 2 equations:

If User Stories are estimated in Points, the Role Effort Completed value is calculated according to the following equation:

Let’s look at this User Story which has been estimated as 10h of Developer Effort and 5h of QA Effort.

Let’s add 3h of Time Spent by a Developer. 7h is now the Time Remaining for this developer:

Let’s add 2h of Time Spent by QA. 3h is now the Time Remaining for this QA:

Now, let's change Effort for the Developer from 10h to 2h:

... and the Effort for QA from 5h to 3h:

Progress of a User Story with Tasks

Effort for Tasks is calculated separately. Let’s add a Task with 3h Developer effort to the User Story:

Let’s add 1h of Time Spent by Developer to the Task. 2h is now the Time Remaining for this Task:

Progress of a User Story with Bugs

Effort and Time Spent of nested Bugs is not included into total effort and time spent of User Stories.

It is possible to set up custom calculations and get total Bugs count, effort, time spent, cost displayed per User Story. Learn how: Metrics for Bugs in User Stories and Features.

Metrics Engine

Automatic recalculations of Effort, Effort To Do, Effort Completed, Time Spent, Time Remain, Progress fields are performed by metrics engine. In Audit History logs, all the changes of field values are displayed as performed on behalf of 'Metrics Engine' system user.

Troubleshooting

In some cases it may be not clear why you see progress which is shown much more or less than expected. Below we describe most typical cases why it could happen.

There is time spent already, but progress is still 0%

It happens when the estimated Effort of your user story is zero.

If you input time spent and remaining in actual hours on a user story, then for correct progress calculation you have to input estimated effort as well.

Otherwise you may observe the issue: time spent is not zero, but progress is still 0%. It happens because estimated effort for the story is 0.

To resolve this issue, please add non-zero estimation for the effort of the user story.

There is time remaining still, but progress is already 100%

It happens when time remaining in hours is specified for one of the roles, but its Effort in points is currently zero.

This issue may occur only when planning unit selected in process settings is points.

If you estimate effort and/or input time remaining for multiple roles (say, Developer and QA Engineer) in actual hours in tasks, then for correct progress calculation on user story level you have to input estimation in points as well.

Otherwise you may observe the issue: time remain is not zero, but progress is already 100%. It happens because all hours remain are for QA Engineer role, but estimated effort for QA Engineer role is 0 pt.

To resolve this issue, please add non-zero estimation in points to QA Engineer role in your user story.