Is there a smart value for Epic Estimates?
Asked by Julian Governale:

Is there a smart value that captures the Epic estimate that is found on the epic panel?

My Goal is to set this value on the Epics Story Point field. I know its not really that practical but our business is requesting / demanding we display this on the epic.

Im currently rolling all Sub-task story points into their parent story, it doesn't seem like i can then sum the stories and task under the epic into the story point field on the epic.

Im using automation but we have JMWE event based actions as well.

![2021-04-22_12-17-25.png](https://community.atlassian.com/t5/image/serverpage/image-id/139942iFB82FADE61DC1836/image-size/large?v=v2&px=999 "2021-04-22_12-17-25.png")


Answers:
author: Bill Sheboy
body: HI [@Julian Governale](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/1147654)

No. I believe the fields in your image on a company-managed project, backlog's epic panel are computed and not stored in the epic.

What problem are you trying to solve?

Best regards,

Bill

comments: author: Julian Governale
body: Thanks for the response [@Bill Sheboy](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/1685313) . What im trying to solve is rolling story point from the sub-task up to the stories (got that working) and then rolling the stories story points up to the Epic level.

For Sub-task to stories im doing the following rule using {{issue.subtasks.Story Points.sum}} which works great.

![2021-04-22_16-33-21.png](https://community.atlassian.com/t5/image/serverpage/image-id/139991iD5279F4DD4834E59/image-size/large?v=v2&px=999 "2021-04-22_16-33-21.png")

Next part is to Sum all the Stories, Story Points up to the Epic and display the sum of there story points on the Epic it self. In essence once a story point field is modified on the subtask level, we want to see the updated aggregation of all story point on the Epic level.


author: Bill Sheboy
body: Thanks for the explanation, Julian.

As you are updating the stories already with the sum from the sub-tasks, that calculated field on the epic panel should show the total.

If you need the field elsewhere for epics, say in a filter output, you could use a different automation rule to sum the story values and put it in the epic. To do that you could:

* Trigger: story points change
* Condition: issue type is story
* Action: Lookup Issues action with JQL, where "Epic Link" = {{issue.epic link}}
* Branch: on parent (epic)
  * Action: edit story points to {{lookupIssues.Story Points.sum\|0}}

Please note this will recalculate every time a story changes...so if you change the sub-tasks of two different stories in rapid succession, it will lead to two re-calcs for the epic.


author: Julian Governale
body: That did the trick and it is working perfectly on our issues! Thanks so much [@Bill Sheboy](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/1685313) for the help on this one. I need to use the lookupissue action more as that seems to be my missing piece periodically.

Again thank you very much for the help!


author: Bill Sheboy
body: Awesome! I am glad that helped you.


author: Sonia Go?awska
body: Hi [@Bill Sheboy](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/1685313),

is that solution also applicable for custom field? We do not use Story Points, but custom field called "Estimation: Probable Case (total man days effort)" in the issues \& Epics and my intention is to sum those estimations and display total on Parent Epic. Can you please advise me how to do this?


author: Bill Sheboy
body: Hi [@Sonia Go?awska](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/4592096) -- Welcome to the Atlassian Community!

Short answer: not with Lookup Issues, and...

Longer answer:

First thing, please consider creating a new question and linking to existing posts. That may get more people in the community to see your item. Thanks!

Okay, back to your question...Are you using Jira Cloud or Jira Server/Data Center, as the automation rules have different features for each?

The Lookup Issues action I noted only works for Cloud, and it [does not yet support any custom fields](https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/JRACLOUD-75018). There are a couple of possible work-arounds for that limitation:

* You note not using Store Points. So, what if you copy your value to the Story Points field whenever the custom field changes (using and automation rule)? You could then use Lookup Issues to sum "Story Points", and use it as needed.
* The other way to sum any field is a bit more complicated: [use a webrequest to call the REST API](https://community.atlassian.com/t5/Jira-articles/Automation-for-Jira-Send-web-request-using-Jira-REST-API/ba-p/1443828) to load your data using a [JQL statement](https://docs.atlassian.com/software/jira/docs/api/REST/1000.824.0/#api/2/search-search). and then parse the response using [text](https://support.atlassian.com/jira-software-cloud/docs/smart-values-text-fields/) and [list](https://support.atlassian.com/jira-software-cloud/docs/smart-values-lists/) functions. For this method, test your JQL first stand-alone to ensure it works as you expect.

Kind regards,  
Bill


Tags: jira-misc-workflow-extensions