How to add a standard set of issues to existing Epics?

[Owen]

Hi.......first post! 

I've inherited an existing Jira project which is missing a lot of info.  Lots of Epics.....everyone 'knows' what needs to be done in each.....little more detail.  I want to add a standard set of issues to each epic as a starter to getting structure i.e. Analysis, Build, Test, Sign-off.  

What's the best way to add a standard set of issues to those existing epics?  Using add-ons etc is very restricted here.

[Callum Carlile _Automation Consultants_]

Hi @Owen,

You can use Jira's jql search to filter out the list of issues you would like to add to the epic (such as issue type, status, issues with a particular label or component etc. - basically any field in Jira you can filter for).

There's then a 'bulk change' option, which is the button with 3 dots to the right of the search bar. Select all of the issues, then you want to click on the 'Edit Issues' operation on the next page, then find the 'Change Epic Link' field on the next page. here, you can select the epic that you would like to add the list of issues to, by searching for the epic's issue key (e.g. ABC-123).

Continue to click through (choose to send email updates to those involved with the issues based on the project's notification scheme etc.) then all of the issues you filtered out will finally be added to the epic :)

[Owen]

Thanks @Callum Carlile _Automation Consultants_ 

I'm hoping to add the standard set to over 50 epics.  I don't think that method will allow me to do a bulk change...........?

[Callum Carlile _Automation Consultants_]

@Owen Yeah this isn't possible, bulk change or not - in Jira, an issue can only have one epic link.

I feel like I should say, this is by design, and it isn't really best practice to have issues being shared by over 50 epics! Epics are used to group together a bunch of issues, and issues don't tend to be shared by multiple epics by design (see diagram in link below)

https://scrumandkanban.co.uk/theme-epic-story-task/

[Owen]

@Callum Carlile _Automation Consultants_ 

I'm with you.  My explanation probably wasn't clear......why couldn't you read my mind?! The idea was to add the standard set of issues separately to each epic i.e. each set is aligned to just one epic.  So, 50+ Analysis issues, 50+ build issues, etc.  That was intended as a starting point to get the relevant team members to gather the appropriate task info and estimates under each epic.  

I've picked up the project with 50+ epics, pretty much no other detail and the build is underway!  I'd like to stop and redo the epics, stories & tasks properly but told that's not an option just now, so trying to reverse engineer and get some structure.

[Callum Carlile _Automation Consultants_]

@Owen Ah I'm with you! Apologies for not being able to read your mind ;)

I think it will still follow the same process as I explained above, you would just need to bulk edit each set of 50+ issues at a time, with one bulk change for each epic. Unfortunately this will inevitably take some time if you have more than 50 epics to go through, but bulk changing the issues would be the best solution.

[Owen]

@Callum Carlile _Automation Consultants_  Thanks.......I was hoping to find a magic shortcut but not surprised that it probably doesn't exist.  

[Callum Carlile _Automation Consultants_]

Yeah unfortunately not :/ it's just due to the nature of adding groups of issues to a whole load of different epics, there are too many variables to do all of this in one swift action