Distributive Mode is designed for teams managing a fixed pool of hours. Instead of summing up individual estimates, this mode treats the parent issue’s estimate as a total budget.
Any work logged—whether on the container itself or its child work items—is subtracted from that central budget.
Why use Distributive Mode?
This mode is essential for service-based workflows or Time and Materials contracts where the scope is capped. It is most commonly used for:
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Support Contracts: A customer purchases a 50-hour support pack, and every ticket created draws from those 50 hours.
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Retainers: A marketing agency has 20 hours a month for a client; all sub-tasks (emails, ads, design) consume that fixed time.
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Budgeted Research: A parent task has a hard limit of 8 hours, and all sub-tasks must fit within that window.
For example, a customer may purchase 100 support hours.
Requests are then submitted through the JSM portal, and time is logged against the individual support work items created from those requests. These work items are grouped under a higher-level work that acts as a container for the support package, contract, or billing period.
In this setup:
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customer requests are created as separate work items;
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team members log time in those work items;
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all logged time is then collected into the container work item.
This allows the team to track how much of the purchased capacity has been used, while keeping the operational work in separate support tickets.
Distributive mode is useful when multiple issues should contribute to a shared total, but only within the boundaries of a specific container.
How the Logic Works
In Distributive Mode, the Total Estimate stays fixed at the container work item, and the work logs act as a drain on that specific number.
|
Metric |
Calculation Logic |
|---|---|
|
Estimate |
Parent’s estimate as the fixed value. |
|
Time Spent |
Parent worklogs plus sum of all child work item worklogs. |
|
Remaining |
Estimate minus Time Spent. |
|
Ratio |
0% means work hasn't started or no hours have been logged yet. 100% means the entire pool of hours has been used. Over 100% implies going beyond the original budget. |
When it comes to viewing TeamTime data within Jira, it is important to note that the estimates of all work items inside the container are ignored.
Regardless of what work item you choose, the Estimate, Time Spent, Remaining and Ratio shown in the top row of the app’s section will reflect the container’s info.
Why container configuration matters
For distributive mode to work correctly, the project must have a container work item level configured.
This tells TeamTime which level in the hierarchy should act as the calculation boundary.