Rollup field for work items
Rollup field is a custom field that provides you the facility to group values from related data and arrive at cumulative values that help you understand or analyze them better. It summarizes the field values of related items or parent-child items, providing a comprehensive answer for the group of values. It also helps calculate specific values based on the inputs available on the related entities of an item.
Note: This custom field caters solely to work item related requirements and can only be configured in the work item layout.Benefits
- Automate the calculation process
- Automate updates based on the impact of related items
- Choose from the list of predefined functions that you need to perform using the rollup field
- Get summary values for various entities of an item
- Identify the maximum and minimum values of various entities of an item
- Obtain accurate results and minimize manual errors in data aggregation
- Save time by reducing the need for manual calculations
Example 1: Auto-calculate estimation points
Let's assume you are running a project that exclusively handles issue fixes for a particular product. You have certain bugs that come with multiple items and dependencies that themselves qualify to be work items. In this case, each bug or issue will have related items or subitems that contribute to the final estimation of the main bug. While estimating the master item or main item, you will want to take into account all the subitems' estimation. Here, rollup field can help you auto-calulate the final estimation points for the main items by calculating the estimation points of the associated items.
Scenario: A parent item with multiple subitems, each with its own estimated points.
Rollup Field: Total Estimated Points
Rollup Type: Child to parent
Source Field: Estimation points defined for each sub-item.
Aggregation Function: Sum
Result: The custom rollup field automatically sums the estimated points from all subitems and displays the total estimated points for the parent item.
Example 2: Auto-calculate duration
Let's assume you have work items that have subitems. When you try to estimate the duration of the main or parent work items, you need to take into account the start and end dates of all the subitems because their completion time impacts the completion time taken for the main item.
So, you have item A that has the following subitems: A1, A2, A3, and A4.
The start and end dates of the items are as follows:
- Item A: Starts on August 1st 2024 and ends on November 15th 2024
- Item A1: Starts on August 1st 2024 and ends on September 1st 2024
- Item A2: Starts on August 21st 2024 and ends on October 5th 2024
- Item A3: Starts on September 10th 2024 and ends on October 25th 2024
- Item A4: Starts on September 20th 2024 and ends on November 15th 2024
The duration for Item A is calculated from August 1st to November 15th. This is the planned duration.
The main item's timeframe houses the timeframe of all the subitems. If you change the end date of any of the subitem to exceed the end date of the main item, the duration needs to be recalculated. If Item A4's end date is changed to December 1st, then the rollup field of Item A can automatically display the changed duration based on the changes made to the subitem A4's date.
Scenario: A parent item with multiple subitems, each with its start and end dates.
Rollup Field: Estimated Duration
Rollup Type: Child to parent
Source Field: End dates of each of the subitems.
Aggregation Function: Maximum Duration
Result: The custom rollup field automatically updates the estimated maximum duration for the parent item A based on the modified end date of the subitem A4.
Example 3: Related entities of an item
The related items of an item refer to the aspects available in the item details. The data of the following item entities can be auto-processed using rollup field: attachments, comments, and log hours.
You can view the total number of comments added to an item, the sum of log hours submitted for an item, the total number of timesheets submitted for an item, and so on.
Scenario: You have an item with multiple log hours
Rollup Field: Total Log hours
Rollup Type: Related entities
Source Field: Log hours of a work item
Aggregation Function: Sum
Result: The rollup field automatically sums the log hours and displays the total log hours for the Item.
Rollup Field: Total Log hours
Rollup Type: Related entities
Source Field: Log hours of a work item
Aggregation Function: Sum
Result: The rollup field automatically sums the log hours and displays the total log hours for the Item.
Rollup Types and their Functions
There are two rollup types: Child to Parent and Related Entities. Each of these types come with a set of rollup functions that allows you to auto-calculate values of different aspects of an item.
Child to Parent
This is applicable to cases where there are parent items and subitems. This type is useful to summarize data from all the subitems and auto-calculate the resultant value of the parent item.
You can use the following functions:
- Sum Of Subitems Estimation Points
- Sum Of Subitems Duration
- Sum Of Subitems Log hours
- Average Estimation Points of Subitems
- Average Duration of Subitems
- Minimum Estimation Points of Subitems
- Minimum Duration of Subitems
- Minimum Start Date of Subitems
- Minimum End Date of Subitems
- Maximum Estimation Points of Subitems
- Maximum Duration of Subitems
- Maximum Start Date of Subitems
- Maximum End Date of Subitems
- Count of Subitems
There are a few aspects in Child to Parent rollup that you need to weigh in to get the most appropriate value:
- Include value of parent item while calculating
You need to determine if the value of the parent item must be included in the calculation. If you do not include this, the values of the child items alone will be processed. - Populate values for root/standalone items alone
You need to determine whether you want to populate the final value for the root/standalone items alone. This will ensure that the value populated is strictly to the root item. - Include unestimated values while calculating minimum estimation
You need to determine whether you want to include unestimated items while calculating minimum estimation. Because unestimated items will be calculated as 0 and the minimum value will automatically be 0. The same principle is applicable to average calculation. While calculating the average, you need to determine whether those items with no estimation must be included. This directly impacts the resulting value. - Include empty date values while calculating minimum duration
You need to determine whether you want to include empty dates while calculating the minimum duration. Because empty dates will be calculated as 0, and the minimum value will automatically be 0. The same principle is applicable to average calculation. While calculating the average, you need to determine whether those items with dates must be included. This directly impacts the resulting value.
Rollup field behavior for parent and child items values
The behavior of your rollup field is influenced by the specifics that you define during the configuration.
For instance, let's assume your rollup field configuration includes parent item value. In this case, the rollup field will include your parent items value to the calculated sum. Similarly, in case of average, the parent can be included or excluded to arrive at the rollup value.
This table is based on the assumption that the rollup includes or excludes the parent item value:
| Parent Item | Child Item | Estimation point | Rollup includes parent | Rollup excludes parent |
| Task 1 | | 15 | 20 | 5 |
| | Task 1.2 | 5 | 5 | 0 |
| Task 2 | | 10 | 25 | 15 |
| | Task 2.1 | 5 | 5 | 0 |
| | Task 2.2 | 10 | 10 | 0 |
Let's assume you have parent items with subtasks, which in turn have subtasks of their own. In these cases, you might want to show the sum of estimation only for the main parent items. For this, you could ensure the value to be shown for the root item alone (you can include or exclude the parent item value for calculation of the sum).
| Parent Item | Child Item | Sub child | Estimation point | Rollup to root item alone (Includes parent value) | Rollup to root item alone (Excludes parent value) |
| Task 2 | | | 10 | 35 | 25 |
| | Task 2.1 | | 5 | | |
| | Task 2.2 | | 10 | | |
| | | Task 2.2.1 | 10 | | |
Note: This behavior is applicable to log hours and duration as well.
The image below shows rollup for sum of log hours. Here the parent has two timesheets submitted amounting to 13 hours. It's subitems each have a timesheet submitted amounting to 19 hours. The total of the parent item's log hours is calculated as 32 hours.
Related Entities
Related entities denote the entities of an item. This includes attachments, comments, and log hours. When rollup field in used, you can extract values related to these entities in an item and arrive at conclusions using that data.
You can use the following functions:
- Number of Comments Added
- Number of Attachments Added
- Number of Total Log Hours
- Sum of Log Hours
- Maximum Log Hours
- Last Comment Added On
- Minimum Log Hours
- First Comment Added On
Create rollup field
- Click the gear icon and go to settings.
- Select Layouts and Fields under Customization.
- Select the required module under Layouts and Fields.
- Select the layout.
- Drag and drop the Rollup field from the New Fields panel.
- Select Rollup Type based on your requirement.
- Choose the required Rollup Function.
- Select Filter if applicable. Filters can be applied to use only select aspects to be considered for calculation. For instance, if you are calculating average duration, you can calculate the duration for items in a particular status alone.
- Click Create. The field will be included in the layout
Note
- Once configured, the rollup field type and function cannot be edited. To make changes, you need to delete the field and reconfigure it.
- New rollup field configuration might take a few minutes to reflect in the work items.
Delete field from layout
To delete rollup field:
- Navigate to the required custom layout.
- Hover over the rollup field.
- Click the Delete icon and confirm.
Note: To permanently delete field, go to Available Fields section and delete the field.
Set profile permissions
You can set permission for user access to the rollup field. Learn more
- Navigate to the rollup field in the layout.
- Hover and click the Edit permission icon.
- Define access permission for the required user profile. You can set view permission or hide the field for a particular user profile.
- Click Save to save permission settings.
Note: You cannot enable edit permission for this field because the values are auto-populated.
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