How can I get my stories and subtasks to show up in timeline? I don't use epics.

[Ann Pielli]

Timeline view is requiring me to add Epics to it. I don't use Epics, only Stories and sub tasks. How can I get my stories and sub tasks to show up in the timeline view?

[Trudy P Claspill]

Hello @Ann Pielli 

Welcome to the Atlassian community.

Which Timeline view are you using?

There is a Basic Timeline view that can appear as a tab:

With a Premium subscription, as indicated by the tags on your post, there is also a Timeline view available if you have created a Plan for your project.

If you are referring to the first example - basic Timeline - it is a limitation of that Timeline that i can display only Epics and their child issues. It can't display subtasks and it can't display issues that are not children of Epics.

However, there is an article indicating that will soon change.

Upcoming: Unified, More Powerful Timeline for Jira Software Spaces 

[Karl from Ricksoft]

Hi @Ann Pielli ,

This is expected behavior rather than something you're missing in configuration. Jira's Timeline groups work items under the site's parent work type, which is Epic by default. Items without a parent of that type simply won't render there.

Two ways around it depending on what you're trying to achieve:

• If you're on Free/Standard, just create a single "catch-all" Epic (or one per initiative) purely for grouping purposes, and link your existing Stories to it. You don't have to use it for anything else — it just gives Timeline something to hang the Stories off of.
• If you're on Premium/Enterprise, just use Plans (Advanced Roadmaps) instead — it lets an admin configure a different parent/hierarchy level for the site, so you're not locked into Epic specifically.

Also worth double-checking your Timeline filter settings first, it's possible for Epics/parents to be excluded from view by an active filter even when they exist, which can look identical to this issue from the outside.

Here is the related documentation from Jira.