We have a Maven multi module project consisting of a parent (HelloWorld) and different children (HelloWorldServices and HelloWorldPresentation) and use Jenkins to build.
The error after running the successful test is
[INFO] --- jacoco-maven-plugin:0.7.6.201602180812:report (default-cli) @ HelloWorldServices ---
[INFO] Skipping JaCoCo execution due to missing execution data file:/var/lib/jenkins/workspace/HelloWorld/HelloWorldServices/target/jacoco.exec
The lines before it says
[INFO] --- jacoco-maven-plugin:0.7.6.201602180812:prepare-agent (default-cli) @ HelloWorldServices ---
[INFO] argLine set to -javaagent:/var/lib/jenkins/.m2/repository/org/jacoco/org.jacoco.agent/0.7.6.201602180812/org.jacoco.agent-0.7.6.201602180812-runtime.jar=destfile=/var/lib/jenkins/workspace/HelloWorld/HelloWorldServices/target/jacoco.exec
This is how I defined the parent pom JaCoCo plugin:
<plugin>
    <groupId>org.jacoco</groupId>
    <artifactId>jacoco-maven-plugin</artifactId>
    <version>0.7.6.201602180812</version>
    <configuration>
        <destfile>${project.artifactId}/target/jacoco.exec</destfile>
        <datafile>${project.artifactId}/target/jacoco.exec</datafile>
    </configuration>
    <executions>
        <execution>
            <id>jacoco-initialize</id>
            <goals>
                <goal>prepare-agent</goal>
            </goals>
        </execution>
        <execution>
            <id>jacoco-site</id>
            <phase>package</phase>
            <goals>
                <goal>report</goal>
            </goals>
        </execution>
    </executions>
</plugin>
In no pom did I explicitly mention surefire. I also tried what you find everywhere to put the argLine in the configuration but all with the same result. The JaCoCo .exec file has never been created, no matter what I do. As for the goals, I use
mvn clean install jacoco:prepare-agent jacoco:report
Since when I omit the jacoco goals, it doesn't even display the INFO message.