Estimate Work Item time

In some development organizations, developers are asked to provide an initial time estimate for Work Items. In other organizations, this is done by a project leader or manager. Polarion provides the capability to estimate Work Items and track the time actually spent to resolve them. Over time, the data collected is highly useful to both developers and managers in estimating time to complete projects and understanding how accurately they can plan.

  1. Locate the Work Item, and select it to display its detail in the Detail pane.

  2. In the Detail pane toolbar, click Edit.

  3. Locate the Initial Estimate field, and enter the amount of time you think it will take to complete the Work Item.

  4. Enter the same value in the Remaining Estimate field. You adjust this value as you work on the item.

  5. Click Save to save the edit.

Time notation syntax

Polarion has a special syntax for entering and displaying time. Using this syntax, you can estimate Work Item time in days (d + integer), hours (h + integer), or a combination of days and hours. You can use 1/2 in front of the day or hour symbol to indicate half.

For some examples, click the ? icon to the right of the Initial Estimate field.

Hours as decimal values:

It is possible for a system administrator to override the default factional syntax for hour values, and enable entry and display as decimal values. If this is done, the help dialog box that appears when you click the ? icon appearing with time fields will indicate that entry of decimal hours is possible. If so, then instead of 1/2 h, you can enter .50.