Co-assignees in Jira work items

Jira natively allows only one primary assignee per work item at any given time. Because ownership often shifts as an item moves through different workflow statuses, getting early estimates from everyone involved can be difficult.

TeamTime’s Co-assignees

TeamTime’s Co-assignee feature (available in the Advanced Tier edition, Cumulative^Plus calculation mode) solves this limitation. It allows managers to include all contributing team members on a work item right from the start, enabling early estimation and transparent progress tracking across the entire team.

Key Capabilities

• Multi-user estimation: Team members can submit individual estimates regardless of whether they are currently set as the primary Jira assignee. These estimates can then be seen in the Estimate log.

• Proactive reporting: Anyone added as a co-assignee immediately appears in the item's TeamTime reports.

• Estimate tracking: If a co-assignee has not yet provided an estimate or logged time, their entry appears blank in reports, allowing managers to quickly see who has submitted input and who has pending actions.

How Co-Assignee Status is Granted

A team member is added to a work item’s co-assignee list through any of the following triggers:

1. Manual addition: An authorized user manually selects them in the co-assignee field.

2. Primary assignee: They are set as the main Jira assignee for the work item.

3. Estimate submission: They provide an estimate to the work.

4. Work log submission: They log time against the work item.

Working with Co-Assignees

The Co-assignees multi-select field is located in the work item's context fields section.

1. Open the relevant work item.

2. Find the Co-assignees manager in the context fields.

3. Add or remove team members from the dropdown menu:

Providing individual estimate

To give an estimate to your work, follow these simple steps:

1. Open the work item for which you would like to provide an estimate.

2. Locate the context fields of the work item and click the TeamTime header to reveal Co-assignee manager.

3. Click the Add estimate button. A pop-up window will appear:

4. Provide an estimate in the given format and work description.

5. Click Save.

The estimate you have created will then be displayed in the work item’s estimate log:

Estimate log

The estimate log is located right next to Jira’s native work log in the activity section of the work item.

Its purpose is to show who logged each estimate through TeamTime’s Co-assignee feature and when it was recorded. Estimates can be edited either by the person who created it, or by Space Administrator (Administrate Project permission).

To edit an estimate, simply click Edit next to the estimate you would like to modify, and an editing window will appear:

Enter the new value in the Estimate field, modify the Description if necessary, then click Save. The modified estimate will then obtain an Edited tag.