New issues are not assigned to selected Epic in Backlog view

[Oliver Jones]

Hi,

I've been using Jira for many years. I've just joined a new team, and their board isn't behaving as I expected. 

Usually, when in backlog view, I can select an Epic and then start adding stories to the backlog. When I add stories with an epic selected, these stories are auto-assigned to the selected epic. If I add stories without an epic selected, then the stories are not assigned to an epic.

In this new board, I select an Epic and add a story to the backlog, but am presented with a "Issue has been created but is not currently visible" dialog and the issue is not visible on the backlog view. I know this is because the issue hasn't been assigned to the selected epic, but I'm wondering why that's happening!!? 

Please help! :)

[Trudy Claspill]

Hello @Oliver Jones 

Welcome to the community.

I have tried to replicate this in my own instance and am not encountering the same problem.

That makes me wonder if there is something in the board filter that is causing your issue to be excluded from the display. When an issue is added through the backlog screen, the only thing that gets entered is the Summary. It is possible that the board filter is set up to get a subset of issues based on some additional issue criteria that is not being fulfilled in your new issue.

I think, even if you are not a board admin, you should be able to view the board filter by clicking on the ... button in the upper right and selecting Board Settings > General

[Oliver Jones]

Thanks for your reply. 

Here's the filter settings. I can't see anything worth changing that's going to resolve my issue.

[Trudy Claspill]

Hello @Oliver Jones 

If you add a new issue without having selected an Epic, does the new issue appear on the board?

If it does, what are the differences between that issue and one you add while having an Epic selected (besides the link to the Epic)? Are they set to the same status? Are there different values in other fields (besides Summary, of course)?

Can you please review the mappings of Statuses to Columns and see if there are any unmapped Statuses? This will be visible under Board Settings > Columns. If an issue is set to a Status that is not mapped to a column on the board then that is another reason it would not be visible.

[Oliver Jones]

Hey @Trudy Claspill 

Thank you so much.

When I add a new issue without having selected an Epic, the issue does appear on the backlog view. It is visible. See comparison below, I don't see any difference in the fields:

I also checked the mapping of status' and we do not have any unmapped status. 

Any other ideas?

[Trudy Claspill]

I see now why you are getting the message.

Based on the images you provided, the issue you added while you have an Epic selected is not actually getting added as a child issue of the Epic. Notice that the Epic Link field is blank. Since you have the Epic selected in the Epics Pane and the issue you created is not actually linked to the Epic, the issue is not visible based on filtering by Epic.

Now the question is why is the issue not getting linked to the Epic during creation when you have the Epic selected in the Epics pane.

If you display the details for the Epic issue can you add a child issue to the Epic there?

There could be an Automation rule or a permission that impacting your ability to add issues to Epics from the backlog. Have you checked with other team members to see if they encounter the same thing, or the project admin?

[Oliver Jones]

Hey @Trudy Claspill ,

Thanks again for coming back to me. Your logic makes total sense - that's what I suspect is going on, but I don't know the settings/permissions to enable. Do you know where this permission lives?

And yes, I'm an Admin on the project. Other Admins have the same issue. So I think it's a permission at project level.

To confirm, yes I can add a child issue to the Epic there. That works fine. The problem is just in the Backlog view. 

[Oliver Jones]

@Trudy Claspill also want to highlight that the Issues are assigned to Epics successfully in Team Projects. This issue is only happening on Company Managed projects - which again leads me to believe it's a configuration issue. 

[Trudy Claspill]

Hm, given that you can add the issues to the Epic from the Epic Details view, I'm not really understanding why it doesn't work from the Backlog. Does it matter what type of issue you are trying to add to the Epic?

Can you check the Automation Rules for the project to see if there are any rules that are being run when you try to create an issue from the Backlog?

There is not a permission in Company Managed projects that is specific to adding issues to an Epic. 

This is a stumper. I can keep trying to puzzle it out, but you might want to contact Atlassian Support directly on this one.

[Oliver Jones]

Hey @Trudy Claspill - thanks again. I've checked and there are no automation rules. How do I raise that with Atl Support? 

[Tansu Akdeniz]

Here the link to create a support ticket: https://support.atlassian.com/

[Maranda Butler]

Hello @Oliver Jones ,

I found this thread since we are having the same issue with users. Was this resolved? 

Multiple users on our team have the same issue, while works fine for me.  We solved for one user by adding the users individual name to the Board "Administrator" list in Board Settings. Although the user was in the GROUP the issue didn't resolve until we added their induvial name. Story created and automatically linked to Epic. 

Another user is still having the same issue. When create Story in Backlog under Epic panel it creates new story as "not visible" and does not automatically associate Story to Epic but it appears in overall backlog list when unfiltered. Very odd. 

[Tansu Akdeniz]

Hi @Oliver Jones 

Welcome to the Atlassian Community!!

Can you please click "Clear All Filters" button? There is probably a filter which prevents you view the newly created issue in backlog view. Sample case; new issue may be unassigned but you only show issues assigned to you.

[Bill Sheboy]

Hi @Tansu Akdeniz 

I was able to reproduce this symptom by filtering a board by myself and the epic, and adding an issue in-line.  However the backlog view shown by @Oliver Jones does not seem to show any other filters selected,  user or quick filter, so this may not be the cause.

Kind regards,
Bill

[Oliver Jones]

Hey! Thanks for your reply. As Bill mentioned, there is no filter applied, so this doesn't resolve my issue.

[Tansu Akdeniz]

It escaped my notice @Bill Sheboy, you are right.