Atlassian Projects and JIRA Epics only have a 1:1 mapping

Question

Hi all,

Does anyone understand the justification behind why an Atlassian Project (used with Goals) can only have a 1:1 mapping to Epics in JIRA Software? Seems crazy to me, but I'm wondering if anyone here has any insights or can explain the logic...because I just do not get it!

TIA

motherg · Answer

Interesting point - linking a higher tier of the hierarchy would also assume that people are using something like "initiative" (or whatever they choose to call it) to be a higher tier, but it could also be a fixVersion etc. This is the problem with Atlassian forcing a certain nomenclature on users where it doesn't actually match up to a lot of industry practices.

Goals, for example, could be the perfect way of finally representing OKRs well...but no.

Walter Buggenhout · Answer

Hi @motherg,

I wish I could - just chiming in as I'm sharing your thoughts on this. Considering that the Home experience is available across all Jira plans (i.e. also standard and free, which do not have a hierarchy level above Epics), I can understand to some degree that linking work items at a higher hierarchy level could be problematic somehow. But then I would also think having the possibility to at least link multiple epics would be the next best option.

There is a feature request for this you can track here: ATLAS-36. There is no feedback on it unfortunately to get a better understanding as to why it is not there yet.

Hope this helps!