What is a Feature in Jira

[Randy Ellefson]

Hi,

I have a free account to experiment with. I can create an item, and along with epic, task, story, etc., another option is "feature."

I've googled this repeatedly just now and can't find an explanation of this. Can someone explain how this relates to the rest? I know what the others do, just not "feature."

Thanks.

[Trudy Claspill]

Hello @Randy Ellefson 

Welcome to the Atlassian community.

Natively Jira offers a three-level work item heirarchy 

Level 1: Epic

|-- Level 0: "standard" item types

    |-- Level -1: subtask item types

This is a parent-child hierarchy. Parents and children are in adjacent levels.

Natively there is just one work item type at Level 1, and it is named "Epic".

Jira provides a variety of other work items added to new Spaces when you create them, based on the Space templates you choose. Generally there will be just one item type at Level -1 also. All the other item types are created at Level 0; Story, Bug, Task, and so on. Feature is at this level.

From a technical perspective all the items types at Level 0 are treated the same by Jira. You can customize Jira to handle them in different ways.

You decide through your business process what each of these mean. Jira itself does not define what it means to be a Feature.

[Trudy Claspill]

On a side note, if you are new to Jira you may want to take advantage of the free, on-demand training available through the Learning link at the top of the Community pages. It has courses for all levels of experience, both on general topics and report dives into specific topics.