We're working on Agile support as well, so tasks will be scheduled according to their sprints, etc. The next release is coming and is planned to be available in a month or so.

Thanks fort he answer. I am looking forward. Any suggestions about the next release date?
(Auto schedule is not a request for me. Working agile, there are anyway not so much stories in advance, auto schedule is helpful for waterfall and ticketing.
And the major problem (but not the only one) is the planning with epics wich got a calculated effort because of the planned duration. The duration of a story is anyway given by the sprint duration.)

Hi Beat!

In the upcoming Structure.Gantt 1.4 it will be possible to define Effort independently of duration for manually scheduled tasks (i.e. it will be possible to create Fixed Duration tasks).

It will be possible to specify duration separately for Auto scheduled tasks later.

Is there any chance for the future that I will be able to set duration and effort independent (against the actually hard wired calculation of the other value via the 'assigned' resource availability)?
The 'Default Resource Settings -> Units' <= the required field.
=> Remove the requirement of that field and accept an independent duration (start-stop) and effort (estimation)

Again: If I have a PCB to develop: the developer uses 2d effort but the delivery of the external factory uses 4 weeks duration then I would like to set both values independent for that issue. If any of the values changes does not mean the other one changes too. => I would like to shift the stop date without effort recalculation.
Unfortunately this AddOn Gantt is doing it because of the required unit field (which recalculates all the time the other value)

This behaviour makes it unusable to be used as a project planning tool for me.

Hi Beat!

It is possible to manually define both Start and Finish dates and Effort still will be calculated by these dates at the moment, but we're working on a "fixed effort" mode which as far as I understand is something you're interested in. I.e. Effort will always remain the same but you will be able to adjust start and end dates without affecting it.

Concerning Epics and their effort. This is possible to do with a Script Runner and not with Structure.Gantt because currently it is out of the scope of our plugin. That might change later.

Thanks again for your interest and feedback!

Regards,
Alexey.

Let me summarise your answer:
- So, actually, Original Estimate indeed is Effort and not the Duration

As long as the duration is hard wired with the effort I always change the Effort with the duration (this is not real life. Duration changes because the resource availability changes all the time and is also different for each group)

- Groups aren't tasks and doesn't have any Effort specified but only a Duration which is calculated based on their children schedules

After I have added child issues the GROUPE still HAS A SPECIFIED Effort which can be seen as a grey value and it is added to the children effort. (in Jira it is still a issue with the before inserted Original Estimation)

Why is it not possible to update the epic Original Estimation field .....
-It is not possible to do in Gantt chart directly since groups has no Effort as I mentioned earlier, but you can do it with a ScriptRunner script for example.

At the time the Issues changes to a group (and also after changes as mentioned earlier) (the group is still an issue in Jira) it has an Effort. If it is possible to change the value with script runner, why is it not possible to do it in this AddOn?

I tried it again. When I move an issue in Gantt, the start (planned start) will be changed. When I move the end (planned end) the effort (original estimation) will be changed but not the planned end date (always comparing with data in the issue what has been inserted or changed)
Not changing the planned end date by moving the end of the stripe, I still can not see any reason for such a behaviour.

Thanks again for your time.
As long as the effort is hard wired to the duration and as long as I have to add my own script to get a usable behaviour, ...
I really regret that I can not use this cool AddOn.

Regards
Beat Luescher

Hi Beat!

> When I have an epic in Structure and I change the duration in Gantt (moving start and end of the stripe) than the duration value is inserted in the Original Estimation Field (which is in my opinion completely wrong).

That's not true. The value that is being inserted into Original Estimate is Effort that was calculated based on the new task duration. You can check this by clicking on a task and changing Max. Units (you can read about Maximum Units here https://wiki.almworks.com/display/gantt/Gantt+Chart+Elements) to, for example, 0.5, as a result your Epic durations should double but Original Estimate should remain intact. Then you can try to resize your Epic to a half and see how Original estimate is changed to a half of its previous value. So, actually, Original Estimate indeed is Effort and not the Duration.

> If I add some stories below the epic than the estimated effort is added to the epic effort (which was the duration in fact). The duration (stripe length) in the Gantt is updated to the first and last story below (which is correct) but the Original Estimation Field remains with the wrong value (which is also strange)

This is because your Epic becomes a Group (a black bracket covering its children), i.e. a simple grouping of issues. You still see it is an Epic in the WBS, right, but Gantt treats it differently and ignores task properties such as Original Estimate, etc. Groups aren't tasks and doesn't have any Effort specified but only a Duration which is calculated based on their children schedules. You can not change the duration of a group by drag and drop, nor its Original Estimate or Manual Start is taken into account.

> I expect: Duration is a separate field than Originally Estimation. The length of the stripe in Gantt is connected to a duration field. The effort (Original Estimation) can be set independent.

That's exactly how it works now, except that there is no Duration field which is calculated dynamically based on Effort, Calendar, Maximum Units and assigned Resource.

> When I define stories below (an Epic) the duration is updated to the stories. Why is it not possible to update the epic Original Estimation field to the stories too (Epic Effort is set to 0 and only shows the summary of the stories, otherwise the effort is estimated twice)?

It is not possible to do in Gantt chart directly since groups has no Effort as I mentioned earlier, but you can do it with a ScriptRunner script for example. Moreover, it seems like your issue is not directly related to Gantt chart itself since Original Estimate of the Epic will not be visible in the chart nor be used by it anyway.

> Structure is great idea, I really would like to use it. It would really supports the WBS creation. But exactly the actual behaviour (connection between duration and effort) makes it unusable for a WBS creation.
> The Parents are defined from the beginning to get a duration idea for the final project closer an rough effort estimated to get a cost idea. Especially in agile environment, during the whole project lifetime I brake down Parent issues. This two values (duration and effort) should be handled separate and independent over all issues.

I understand your problem but it this is the way our gantt currently works - we are trying to keep it flexible enough so that users can use it in different scenarios, but unfortunately it’s not possible to make it work in all situations. You can still achive desired behavior (of updating epics Original Estimate) by extending Jira and using ScriptRunner.

Thank you for the feedback!

Work break down structure means, a group is not a group from the starting point. First it is an issue (parent issue) without content (child issues).

At this time I would like to define a duration and an effort independent.

Later I define the content (child issues) of the group (parent issue). At this moment the group should update the two values (duration and effort) to the defined Childe issues.

But the it is important that each of the defined child issues could change to a group too when I define again child issues below one or more of first defined children. Structure should not limit the levels of Parent and child issues.

During whole process duration and effort are strictly separated and available.

In general there are two relevant time measurements: Duration which is relevant for date / milestones and Effort which is relevant for cost.
A story is estimated by Effort. The duration is given by the planed sprint. An epic is also estimated by Effort (if there are not already stories below) but there is no field for duration.
A Gantt shows/visualise the duration (not the effort). It is used for milestones. Pert is related and shows critical path (it also is not showing effort)
When I have an epic in Structure and I change the duration in Gantt (moving start and end of the stripe) than the duration value is inserted in the Original Estimation Field (which is in my opinion completely wrong).
If I add some stories below the epic than the estimated effort is added to the epic effort (which was the duration in fact). The duration (stripe length) in the Gantt is updated to the first and last story below (which is correct) but the Original Estimation Field remains with the wrong value (which is also strange)
I expect: Duration is a separate field than Originally Estimation. The length of the stripe in Gantt is connected to a duration field. The effort (Original Estimation) can be set independent.
WhenI define stories below (an Epic) the duration is updated to the stories. Why is it not possible to update the epic Original Estimation field to the stories too (Epic Effort is set to 0 and only shows the summary of the stories, otherwise the effort is estimated twice)?
The behaviour should not be hard connected to Epic and Story (issues from Jira) . It is a general behaviour. In the parent issue I can set Duration and Original Estimation independent. If there are child issues (where I can set Duration and Effort again independent) then the Parent shows the summary effort of the Childs and the duration is given by the first and the last planed story.
Structure is great idea, I really would like to use it. It would really supports the WBS creation. But exactly the actual behaviour (connection between duration and effort) makes it unusable for a WBS creation.
The Parents are defined from the beginning to get a duration idea for the final project closer an rough effort estimated to get a cost idea. Especially in agile environment, during the whole project lifetime I brake down Parent issues. This two values (duration and effort) should be handled separate and independent over all issues.

Hi Beat!

Actually, Duration is separated from the Effort: there is Work (Effort) and Duration that you can inspect by clicking any task or group (for groups Duration only is shown).

Can you elaborate more on your particular setup so I can better understand your case?

Thank you.

Sincerely,
Alexey