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This feature is not yet stable. It is in preparation for the next release and will be available until end of June 2012. |
Idea
There are two different time planning levels within ictime:
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Version 2.0.1 |
The planning sheet is a central place for setting plan values on the level of project, component and issue. Before using the planning sheet, please make yourself familiar with the planning concept of ictime, specifically with the concept of generic values versus values retrieved from lower hierarchy levels (see Planning Concept).
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Please note that planning in ictime is always time-based. Even though you can assign a cost/price to you work for time you log, we do not offer financial budget planning at this stage, but just time-planning. |
Planning Approach
When you plan your project, especially in the beginning, you might only have a very high-level planning (e.g. time budgets on project or component level), and with the time, you can go more into details (tasks, sub-tasks). So you need to start planning with very rough numbers, but of course with the time, you want to benefit from being able to plan more in detail. It also might happen that some people in general prefer to plan top-down and others want to plan bottom-up:
- top-down planning, where planning only takes place on project and maybe component level,
- bottom-up planning, where plan figures for a project or component (only) arise from the plan figures for tasks and sub-tasks.
In fact both approaches have serious disadvantages. The first does not allow for control on lower levels, the second leads to a situation where the planning only gets complete towards the end of the project, because you usually can't pre-define all tasks and sub-tasks in the beginning of a project.
As a conclusion and to cover both needs, you need to set top-down time budgets on a certain level, and at the same time, you want to use bottom-up time budgets that are derived from a more detailed planning on lower levels. How this can be reached is described in the following.
When doing the planning and when showing time planning values, we distinguish two kinds of values:
| Planning Values | Description | Remarks |
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| generic | plan-values entered on this level, you set this value | possible for components and project; on task level, this is simply the JIRA work estimate |
| calculated | time is retrieved from lower levels, you see this value, but can't set it | this is a value calculated by ictime from available data on the next-lower level according to the logic explained below |
Depending on the level (project, component, task) you are working on, these values have a slightly different idea for the ictime project time planning sheet:
| Level | Value | Description |
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| Sub-Task | generic* | JIRA work estimate on sub-task level |
| Task | generic* | JIRA work estimate on task level |
| Component | generic | if you set this value, it will be considered to calculate the total for the project, if you do not set it, the calculated value for this component will be taken instead |
| calculated | sum of work estimates of all tasks of this component, will be considered to calculate the total for the project if no generic value is set for this component | |
| Project | generic | will be displayed for information purposes |
| calculated | sum of plan values of all components (generic and/or calculated, this is decided on component level) |
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In fact, JIRA calculates the work estimate for a task as sum of work estimates of all sub-tasks + the work estimate for the task itself; but from ictime planning point of view, this is not a calculated value, as in our project time planning sheet, we do not show the sub-task level, but our starting point is the JIRA work estimate result on task level. This way, work estimates for sub-tasks are fully considered, but we do not show this as explicit planning level. |
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Even though it might be difficult to understand in the beginning, it is very simple. It's basically all about the component time planning value. By setting a generic plan value on component level, you decide that this value should be used for calculating the results for the project (top-down approach, not very detailed). By not setting it, you decide that the calculated result for the component (= work estimates for all task/sub-tasks of the component) should be used for calculating the project time budget (bottom-up approach, detailed). |
Examples
Have a look at the following example:
| Level | Generic | Calculated | Remarks |
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| Task A1-01 | 5h | We have made a work estimate of 5h. | |
| Task A1-02 | 10h | We have made a work estimate of 10h. | |
| Component A1 | 30h | = 15h | We have planned 30h for component A1, and we have a calculated plan value for this component of 15h from task level. Obviously, the generic value is to high or we are still missing work estoimates for tasks of this component. |
| Component A2 | 20h | We have planned 30h for component A2. No work estimates for tasks yet, so no calculated value. | |
| Component A3 | 10h | We have planned 10h for component A3. No work estimates for tasks yet, so no calculated value. | |
| Projekt A | 100h | = 60h | We have planned 100h on project level. We have a calculated value of 60h from component level. So still some planning to do on lower levels ... |
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You remember, we wanted to plan top-down and bottom up at the same time, and the key is how we handle component planning values. The example above shows a planning situation where we are still missing some detailed planning. As we are aware of that, we still have set plan values directly on component level, and we also still maintain a generic value on project level. This way we have decided that we want to use the (rough) component values for calculating the project plan and are not ready yet to replace them by calculated values from task level. All this gets transparent as we can see that generic and calculated values are present and still don't fit very well. |
Now have a look at the same project in a later planning stage:
| Level | Generic | Calculated | Remarks |
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| Task A1-01 | 5h | We have made a work estimate of 5h. | |
| Task A1-02 | 10h | We have made a work estimate of 10h. | |
| Task A1-03 | 10h | We have added this task and have made a work estimate of 10h. | |
| Component A1 | = 25h | We have deleted the generic value for component A1, as we have decided that the detailed planning for tasks of this component is ready now. So we only have a calculated plan value for this component of 25h from task level (doing the detailed plan on task level, we also realised that 30h was to much). | |
| Task A2-01 | 10h | ||
| Task A2-02 | 25h | ||
| Component A2 | =35h | We have deleted the generic value for component A2, as we have decided that the detailed planning for tasks of this component is ready now. So we only have a calculated plan value for this component of 25h from task level (doing the detailed plan on task level, we also realised that 20h was not enough). | |
| Component A3 | 10h | We have planned 10h for component A3. No work estimates for tasks yet, so still no calculated value. | |
| Projekt A | = 70h | We have deleted the generic value on project level, as we think that planning for components is now okay and reflects the overall time budget we will need. So we have a calculated value of 70h from component level, and big parts of that planning value is a result of work estimates on task level. |
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The example above shows a more detailed planning. Except for the component A3, where we do not have tasks with work estimates yet, we have decided to basically rely on the work estimates from task level, and we also have decided that planning is good enough to eliminate the general time budget for the project itself, as the data we get from lower levels is complete enough. |
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Setting Plan Values
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Planning is also not related to resource-allocation, so you are not planning who is going to do what, but just which time budgets you expect on the level of project, component and issues. These plan values will then be compared with the time logged in the Plan/Actual interface (see Plan/Actual Comparison). |
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Accessing the Planning Sheet
You can either access the planning sheet via the JIRA project tab or via the ictime navigation.
Planning Sheet via ictime Navigation
When accessing via the ictime navigation, you have to choose a project first when entering the planning sheet.
Choose a project and click on the "Show" button.
Planning Sheet via JIRA Project Tab
Choose a project via the JIRA project tab and select the navigation tab "Planning":
If you once have entered the planning sheet this way, you can change the project in JIRA and will directly go to the planning sheet for the respective project.
Basic Structure of the Planning Sheet
The planning sheet consists of the filter bar, the project section and components.
Filter
The filter bar helps you to restrict the planning sheet to a project (only if called via ictime navigation), component, version or user (coming soon - currently, only component is available).
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The filter by component, version and user can be combined. It is basically useful if you want to plan on issue level and is intended to restrict the number of issues on your page and to allow you to focus for a specific component, version and/or user. |
Project Section
This is the highest planning level.You can either enter a "generic" value here or you decide that the total plan value for the project will be taken from the plan value of all components.
Click into the "Use generic" field to inline-edit. If you leave the field, your data is automatically saved. Same applies if you switch between "Use generic" and "Use from components".
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If you have already done a detailed planning on component level, you should always decide to use the sum of all component plan values as total project plan value. If you are in the very beginning of your planning, it might make more sense to set a "generic" value which in fact will be something like an "educated guess" about your project time budget. When you feel that your planning on lower levels is getting better, you will decide to switch. For details, refer to Planning Concept. |
Components
This is the second planning level. Similar to the project level, you can either decide to set a "generic" value or to take the plan values from all issues of this component. If you did not define components for your project in JIRA, ictime will automatically display a component "Without Component".
Click into the "Use generic" field to inline-edit. If you leave the field, your data is automatically saved. Same applies if you switch between "Use generic" and "Use from issues".
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If you have already done a detailed planning on issue level, you should always decide to use the sum of all issue plan values as total component plan value. If you are in the very beginning of your planning on issue level, it might make more sense to set a "generic" value which in fact will be something like an "educated guess" about your component time budget. When you feel that your planning on issue level is getting better, you will decide to switch. For details, refer to Planning Concept. |
When clicking on the component, you get access to all issues of the component and can plan on issue level (see below).
Plan Time for Issues
When clicking on a component, you get access to all issues of that component and can plan time on these issues. Issues will only be loaded in this moment, and we will store in your session that you have opened this component. This setting will be kept, even if you navigate through JIRA or ictime.
This way, you can plan time (make "work estimates") for all issues in one place.
Click into the "Estimate" field to inline-edit. If you leave the field, your data is automatically saved.
| Field/Option | Description | Remarks |
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| Task | Task key (clickable, directs you to the issue screen), name | |
| Type | Issue type | |
| Status | Issue status | |
| Assignee | Assignee of this issue | |
| Estimate | Enter or modify plan value ("work estimate") for this issue. Simply click into the field to inline-edit. If you leave the field, your data is automatically saved. Changes automatically apply the delta to the "remaining estimate" field. | Uses the respective JIRA field. If you have set this value when creating or editing the issue, it will of course be displayed here. If you change it here, it will also change in JIRA interfaces. |
| Remaining Estimate | The remaining estimate. | Uses the respective JIRA field. If you have set or changed this value when creating or editing the issue or when logging work, the current value of course be displayed here. If you change the plan value here, this will always automatically modify the remaining estimate (with the delta of your plan change). |
If an issue is assigned to more than one component, it will only appear once in the planning sheet. It will be displayed with the component that is the first in alphabetical order.
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Please note that - contrary to normal JIRA behaviour - in this interface, you can also plan time on issues that have already been closed. This is basically intended to allow for "ex-post" planning. |
Issue Time Planning on Issue Screen (Work Estimates)
Plan values on the level of tasks and/or sub-tasks are managed can also be set via the respective JIRA functionality. See http://confluence.atlassian.com/display/JIRA/Logging+Work+on+an+Issue#LoggingWorkonanIssue-Specifyingtimeestimates and Work Estimates, Remaining Estimate.
Component
Project
Target/Actual Comparison (Reports)
Accuracy / Planning Progress
Difference in % between a generic and calculated value on one level (indicates that detailed planning is required)
Planned/Logged
The main difference - apart from the fact that you have to navigate to the issue - is that work estimates set via JIRA default functionality usually have the option to not automatically modifying the remaining estimate with the delta of your plan change, but the remaing estimate is either left unchanged by default, or you have the choice to leave it unchanged, to set it manually etc.