What is the best way to convert time estimates on a Jira MS Excel exported file

[Ayesha Ibrahim]

So I have been using Jira for now 7 months and simply loving the software. I need to start creating reports so share with the management on estimations and actuals so we can get better in forecasting on projects. But when a export a Jira file as MS Excel it changes the numbers in the time columns. So I am trying to figure out what those numbers mean and I am sure someone must have already looked into this so as newbie am reaching out to the community for help. 

Thanking you in advance :) 

p.s if it helps our time estimates are in hours and days and they convert in an Excel it become a long 4 or 5 figure number 

[Marc - Devoteam · Accepted solution]

Hi @Ayesha Ibrahim 

On exporting Jira issues to CSV timings are displayed in seconds.

So in your report you need to convert from seconds to minutes or hours

You can follow JRACLOUD-8898 where configuration is asked. 

[Hannes Obweger - JXL for Jira · Accepted solution]

Hi @Ayesha Ibrahim

I believe what is happening is that Jira converts your estimate value into minutes (or maybe seconds?) when you do the export. Mind checking if this makes sense? Unfortunately I'm not personally aware of a workaround directly in Jira (perhaps someone else can lean in?) but you should be able to re-convert the data in Excel.

Hope this helps,

Best,

Hannes

[Hannes Obweger - JXL for Jira]

... and just to put this out there: As an alternative, there are many export-focused apps available on the Atlassian Marketplace. 

Just as an example, my team and I work on an app that exports estimates in whatever format you prefer: JXL for Jira. This is how it looks in action:

(For context, JXL is a full-fledged spreadsheet/table view for your issues that allows viewing, inline-editing, sorting, and filtering by all your issue fields, much like you’d do in e.g. Excel or Google Sheets. It also comes with a number of advanced features, including support for (configurable) issue hierarchies, issue grouping by any issue field(s), sum-ups, or conditional formatting.)

As said, there are many export apps available. You may already know that you can trial any app for free for 1 month, and depending on the size of your size, it may be free forever. So if an app is an option for your, perhaps try a few and see which works best for you.

Best,

Hannes

[Kyriakos Tsourapas · Accepted solution]

Hi @Ayesha Ibrahim

As @Danut M _StonikByte_ mentioned, time is in seconds.

But may I also suggest that instead of exporting to files, you can use the Jira Cloud Excel plugin that easily syncs data from Jira to Excel, without needing files.

Check out this article.

May I also suggest that you take a look at my Udemy course on how to use Excel to forecast Hybrid Agile projects, if it suits your case.

Best,
Kyriakos

[Danut M _StonikByte_ · Accepted solution]

Hi @Ayesha Ibrahim,

Jira stores the time estimate fields in seconds. So you will have to divide by 3600 to transform in hours.  

But why struggle with Excel reports when you can easily create complete dashboards in Jira or reports Confluence with data in real time, which could be easily shared with your management!?

Take a look over these articles on how such dashboards or reports could be created by using by our Great Gadgets app, which offers great support for time estimates: 

• https://community.atlassian.com/t5/App-Central/Tracking-an-agile-project-that-uses-time-estimates-with-Great/ba-p/1699994
• https://community.atlassian.com/t5/App-Central/8-gadgets-for-a-powerful-Scrum-dashboard-in-Jira/ba-p/1683063
• https://community.atlassian.com/t5/App-Central/How-to-track-scaled-agile-SAFe-projects-in-Jira-with-Great/ba-p/1929694

Hope this helps.

Danut. 

[Ayesha Ibrahim]

Thank you everyone, all of this is really helpful. 

I think I'll have to export an Excel and then manually convert the numbers into hours and check the variance. I don't think we can subscribe to any new third party tools yet, we are already using Tempo Log time and Rich Filters. 

So thanks everyone for your support this was helpful and really nice to meet you all 🙂