Jira Align - how to report effort spent at a Feature level using points
Asked by Greg Mulligan:

I would like to report how much time we spend on Features based on certain attributes: e.g. new features, compliance, support/maintenance, etc. at a story point level.

These are not our product Themes so can't use them.

Strategic Drivers are too high level as our Portfolio Epics may be a combination of the items listed above. Stories are too granular and would require too much manual effort.

This leaves Features. I have tried Functional Areas but the report that will give me this in a bar-chart format is being deprecated in 10.95, early June :-(

I tried Categories but there are bugs in the work tree view so I can't depend on the work-tree report. The Investment vs Actuals report only gives a count of Features by Category, not points.

Any suggestions? It seems like it should be a fairly easy thing to do.

Thanks, Greg


Answers:
author: Tom O'Connor
body: [@Greg Mulligan](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/2359420) have you looked at Business Driver field on the Features?

The field is configurable - so you can add/update the items in the drop down you want to see.

![Screen Shot 2021-05-12 at 9.09.23 AM.png](https://community.atlassian.com/t5/image/serverpage/image-id/143205i36201F69BF7F9415/image-size/large?v=v2&px=999 "Screen Shot 2021-05-12 at 9.09.23 AM.png")

You can use the Filter on the Backlog page for Features to filter by Business Driver. Make sure you can see that field along with the Story Points field which is the roll up of all story points beneath the feature. When you say time are you looking for effort in points or actual TASK time? Task time may be better viewed in Jira if teams are putting hours against tasks.

![Screen Shot 2021-05-12 at 9.09.54 AM.png](https://community.atlassian.com/t5/image/serverpage/image-id/143206iCD6F377AD17752F0/image-size/large?v=v2&px=999 "Screen Shot 2021-05-12 at 9.09.54 AM.png")

![Screen Shot 2021-05-12 at 9.10.07 AM.png](https://community.atlassian.com/t5/image/serverpage/image-id/143207i0F8DAB3905B1109C/image-size/large?v=v2&px=999 "Screen Shot 2021-05-12 at 9.10.07 AM.png")

As you can see, we are filtering on the Business Driver and each feature is showing the number of story points rolled up to the feature based on the stories underneath each feature. This should provide you the effort for each set of features by Business Driver.

![Screen Shot 2021-05-12 at 9.10.30 AM.png](https://community.atlassian.com/t5/image/serverpage/image-id/143209i462944F1942349C9/image-size/large?v=v2&px=999 "Screen Shot 2021-05-12 at 9.10.30 AM.png")

FYI - in this example, Business Driver was the name for the Driver field in the platform terminology.

![Screen Shot 2021-05-12 at 9.16.59 AM.png](https://community.atlassian.com/t5/image/serverpage/image-id/143210iDE813AF958779CD9/image-size/large?v=v2&px=999 "Screen Shot 2021-05-12 at 9.16.59 AM.png")

Let me know if you think this answers your question.

comments: author: Greg Mulligan
body: Thanks [@Tom O_Connor](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/3078478) that looks like it will work but unfortunately no report. I will have to export and use a pivot chart to use it on a dashboard.

One tip for those who may be using this process: it looks like the same bug that applies to Categories when synching from Jira also affects Business Drivers (a default value is populated where it should be blank, currently tracked by <https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/JIRAALIGN-2954>, please upvote if it's impacting you!).

I added all the relevant drivers and renamed the 'Standard Feature' (the one that defaults) to "None selected".

Now it will be easier to manage the data quality. Asking people to remember to update an incorrect default in a field is always a challenge :-)

Thanks again [@Tom O_Connor](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/3078478) , much obliged,

Greg