Flyspray - The bug killer!

Also recording the actual time spent to complete/close the task would be nice.

I agree with richard as it allows for accounting spent time on a bug/project/feature... This could then make an all-in-one solution for tracking work time and create bills for customers.

Opinions please: who should be able to set the estimated time? Should any random submitter be allowed to put a value in, or only the person who the task has been assigned to? I’d be interested in having a go at implementing this.

I think probably the actual time taken is a separate (and handy) feature request.

As for the estimated time field. I think it’s important that it can be set before the task is assigned. A developer/lead programmer may have a good idea of how long something will take, but may not want to immediately commit to assigning the task.... and in fact may prioritize assignment based somewhat on estimated times.

Having said that, you might not want contributors, or members of groups without the “modify existing tasks” property, to be allowed to set estimates. The “modify existing tasks” property is by default only given to admin and developer groups (I think...).

I don’t know how difficult that would be, but even allowing everyone who can create new tasks the ability would be a good first step. I currently put all the time estimates in the summary field :)

I’d like to see a task having an estimated time (why not allow the reporter to enter it, can always be updated by admin/proj mngr/assignee).

I’d also like a time spent so far box that can only be edited by admin/proj mgr/assignee.

This way you can calculate the progress percentage too, and avoid the common situation of getting to 90% and then never moving to 100% because it always need just that extra hour of work.

BTW - I’m more than happy to do this...

Thanks, Ben. Please provide patches against the current SVN version. You now have permission to attach files to tasks in this project, or you can send to the mailing list.

Having column totals at the bottom of the task summaries for the given display for both estimated and actual times would be cool too. All the other fancy stuff would be cool too, but just a simple column for time would be fine for now.

I’m very interested in seeing this done as well. It is _very_ useful to be able to see how large a particular project is. In our day to day work, sometimes shorter projects of lower priority come before larger projects of higher priority.

If we can enter estimated time, being able to enter actual time is a natural next step, and to us, entering actual time is even more important than estimated time, if we had to choose just one.

Regarding who should be able to edit it: the submitter should not be able to, unless they’re a developer, manager, or admin. They’re the only ones who really would be able to accurately estimate the time. Then again, maybe a submitter could enter a first guess, and when someone confirms it or assigns it, they could make it more accurate as needed.

My opinion is that this can be achieved with what is proposed in  FS#218 . I already think that we have enough default fields. When  FS#218  is implemented, I might even consider removing some of them from default installations, and turning them into optional, user-added fields (if that makes sense).

I would generally agree with you that the ability to add our own fields would suffice, but I do believe that “hours” is a slightly different beast. It would be nice, as stated a few comments up, that this field also totaled across tasks so one could see how many hours a project or group of selected tasks took. This could be done manually, but it would be better to just have flyspray calculate it for you.

This task should be related to  FS#218 . I’d do it if I had permissions...

Re: related to  FS#218 

The remaining time fields have in built functionality (simple calculations) to work out time remaining and “Percent Complete” based on time spent and estimated time remaining. If a “calculated field” option were added in to  FS#218  then this would be possible.

The “Percent Complete” value would also have to support a formula based look-up against custom fields, in order for that to work.

This task also relates to FS#730. There may be a good solution which takes care of both tasks at once.

Is there a current status report on this functionality? I thought someone had been working on it more recently than July.

My apologies guys. I’ve had to take my name off this task. It was assigned to me ages ago, and I’ve been too busy to even grab the source code. Sorry for pulling out!

Has this topic been closed? I think it would be a very interesting feature to have such an “Impact Analysis” for every task. Actually two fields would be needed: A textfield for some quotes from the developer and a field where the developer can put in the estimated hours for doing what he just wrote in the other textfield. That would be it.

What is happening with this feature? Sounds good to me.