Welcome to the FogBugz Knowledge Exchange

Question

8

By default, FogBugz converts hours into days if an estimation spans several days. Is there a way to skip this conversion? I want to see hours all the time.

edited Aug 18 2010 at 23:52

Greg Saven♦
2,469●1●5●13

asked Oct 21 2009 at 15:38

Kim Lokøy
261●1●4

Rich Armstrong · Accepted Answer · 2009-12-01 22:14:14Z UTC

6

Showing hours-only is something that many of our customers have asked for and is the new default behavior for FogBugz as of 7.1.5.

We made the change wholesale rather than offering a choice between days or hours for one reason: work days can be subjective in length, whereas hours are not. The big problem here is that if different people have different day lengths, they see different results. By showing only hours, it makes the time measures much less subjective.

edited Dec 1 2009 at 22:14

answered Oct 21 2009 at 22:40

Rich Armstrong♦♦
13k●12●29

	The estimates are personal anyway. It doesn't matter if it's subjective. Estimations are supposed to be done in wall-clock time, not "hands touching keyboard" time. For us, hours make no sense. – Ville Laurikari Feb 5 2010 at 6:47
	I'm sorry, but I don't see how estimates being personal and the length of a work day being variable are related. Can you clarify? – Rich Armstrong♦ Feb 5 2010 at 14:58
	I guess Ville means the fact that people estimate in different ways. When, for example, I'm working on an issue which I've estimated to approx three days, I might in the course of those days work for 4 other cases in Fogbugz, and also work on 3 other things which don't have a case. When I've initially estimated the three days, I've included in some time to handle also other errands "on the side". – Sami Lehtinen Mar 3 2010 at 21:50
	I agree with the decision to move to hours as the base unit. Since a "work day" can shift meaning, and an hour cannot (ie. the concept of a "work hour" is not a commonly used one), basing time on a real unit of time allows the maximum flexibility for using that data. In the case where an organization estimates time in different ways, FogBugz assumes you work on 1 task at a time. Any "incidental" tasks that get worked on are assumed to be below the threshold of things that matter. This slight difference needs to be accounted for in the day-length schedule, not the hours actually worked. – cdeszaq Mar 5 2010 at 20:30
	From my personal experience, I agree with the decision to move to hours, too. Too many people translate "14 days" into "available in two weeks". Ooops. – peterchen Apr 16 2010 at 15:38

Greg Whitfield · Answer 2 · 2010-01-07 15:27:36Z UTC

I think it is a problem not having the option to display in days.

I think you need to give credit to the user to understand what days mean. I don't really understand why hours are "much less subjective" than days. In an hour at workm I can just as easily be tending to phone calls, emails, bio-breaks too as I would do a day.

So, please, just give us the option. At least in the list views where you show totals - how about a days column next to the hours?

Ted Cotnoir · Answer 3 · 2010-01-06 08:19:38Z UTC

We have upgraded to 7.1.5 and find it particularly annoying that everything is estimated in hours. Our whole business runs on day estimates and I used to be able to use filters and excel exports to report on aspects of projects. Now I need to convert all these figures into days.

Sami Lehtinen · Answer 4 · 2010-02-04 16:34:27Z UTC

My .02 EUR: I think days make much more sense than hours. Currently our estimates and elapsed times are shown in increments of 7.5 hours. Much hilarity ensued in last sprint planning with tasks with estimates of 37.5 hours or 52.5 hours...

Please give us the option.

Gloria · Answer 5 · 2010-04-14 12:07:58Z UTC

1

From this post it's clear that some users prefer days, some prefer hours for estimates. Why not give us the choice, rather than making it for us?

answered Apr 14 2010 at 12:07

Gloria
11●2

Thx2FB · Answer 6 · 2010-09-27 17:13:52Z UTC

Our Agile team is just getting used to FogBugz: I can't lead them to use estimating at all because, when reported, the hours read like "fake" specificity that they do not want representing them. The best we can do is show estimates in days or not estimate at all.

Please can we get the functionality back?

Antoni Sawicki · Answer 7 · 2010-10-11 23:36:39Z UTC

My team works in days, where of course a task may take 1/2, 1/4 day or 1/8. I report and estimate milestones in days. I want to show someone a job will take 30 days. How many people will know or bother to count how many days is 225 hours?

Can you just not make an option?

Thanks, a

Is it possible to only use hours in Fogbugz

7 Answers