JIRA hierarchy

[Vinay]

Hi Team,

I might be asking a very basic question here.

Can anyone please enlighten me whether we need to follow the set hierarchy of Epic > User story > Task > Subtask?

If i am not following this hierarchy and if I am directly starting with user stories/tasks, is there any issues to produce reports like burndown/burnup charts? Will I end up in incorrect results in terms of hours consumed by development team?

Please help me out in this regard.

Thanks,

Vinayakrishna

India 

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist- · Accepted solution]

Jira Software does not have that hierarchy, it only has Epic -> Issue (Story) -> Sub-task.

You will need Advanced Roadmaps or other apps to get other layers into that hierarchy.

Sprints are done entirely at the Story level though, the Epics and sub-tasks do not have any direct impact on a Sprint (sub-tasks are just a fragment of their parent story, and an Epic is a group of stories that work towards a much larger goal)

There's no impact on sprints as long as you recognise that issue-level items (stories) are the only thing that you can do a sprint on.

[Manikandan Balu]

Hi All,

Though discussion giving me some clarity, want to check the below.

Current hierarchy is Initiative->feature epic->delivery epic

Delivery epic-> (using epic link field) bug/story/

Now customer requesting possibility of linking feature epic with bug, is this possible?

Parent link allows to link feature epic from delivery epic 

Epic link allows to link delivery epic and other issue types

Thanks

Mani

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

I am not sure your post is clear on the hierarchy.

Are you saying it is 

Initiative -> Feature Epic -> Delivery Epic -> Issue (bug or story for example) -> sub-task ?

If so, then no, the Epic Link field is for "Delivery Epic -> Issue".  A bug is logically linked to the Feature Epic when its Delivery Epic is set to one within the Featre Epic

[Manikandan Balu]

Hi Nic,

Thanks for your response. Yes, You are right. Below is the hierarchy.

Initiative -> Feature Epic -> Delivery Epic -> Issue (bug or story for example) -> sub-task 

In this case do we have JQL to filter the list of bugs which are linked with Feature Epic via Delivery Epic.

Thanks
Mani

[Sachin Dhamale]

Hi @Vinay ,

Its Good Question.

The Best Practice will be to use Epic >Story>Task> Subtask.

However Task > Stroy > Subtask is enough for Burndown / Burnup Chart as its based on the sprint. If you are managing your stories in the sprint then there should not be any issue with reports. 

Note - The reports which are based on Epic those will not work like Epic Burndown Chart.

Please Accept the Answer if it works.

Thanks,
Sachin

[Vinay]

Thanks Sachin. This helps.. :) 

[Sachin Dhamale]

@Vinay ,

Please accept the answer if it helps.

[Andreas Haaken (APTIS)]

But how can a Task be a child issue of Story? Jira doesn´t support stacking of Issues out of the box. That only works for Epics. 

But there are several solutions to solve that:

- Jira Roadmaps: add static hierachy Levels ABOVE Epics (define parent Item at child)

- Structure: Create custom structures in a self contained data set (without touching the Issues)

- BigPicture: allows to add organisational Entities to group issues in the Views of the tool

- Epic Sum Up(our Plugin): adds abilty of beeing Container for other Issues, that allows you a free hierarchy,, linked by Container Link field -  Containers are Server/DC Only, but will come to Cloud this year..

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

I agree, I'm afraid the answer is not right, as the hierarchy shown in it is wrong.  It should be Epic ->  Story or Task -> sub-task - 3 layers, not 4.

[Sachin Dhamale]

Correct. Actually i want to mention Story and Task at one level  by mistake i created the sub level between story and task

Epic > Story/Task/ > Subtask.

Sorry for confusion BTW the question was more related with does he really wanted to use Epic or not

[Rilwan Ahmed]

Reports depend on the JQL used in the sprint and the boards. Make sure the JQL pulls required issue types

[Vinay]

Thanks, Rilwan. I am not aware of JQL... Will surely look it up ..