a kanban board for a specific epic?

[Alex Gerulaitis]

(Team-based "business" project, free tier.)

Goal: display a kanban board for a specific Epic. I.e. show all child work items as cards on a board in their "swim lanes" (aka states like "to do" or "completed") (if I am using the right terminology).

• Spaces have tabs in their views (pages), one of the tabs is "Board" - exactly what I am looking for - except it's for the entire space, not a selected "Epic".
• There does not appear to be a filter option that would allow to only show work items related to a specific epic, unless I am missing something. (The "Epic" button in the "Filter" drop-down just restricts the results to "epics".)
• ... and it does not look like JQL is working. If I just type something like `parent = <spaceID>-<number>` in the search box: no results.

So how do I filter a board to only show a specific epic and all of its child (or "related") work items? (Or if that's not easy, how do I create the needed view some other way?)

(This should be simple?)

[John Funk · Accepted solution]

Hi Alex,

Team-managed spaces are very limited as far as customization and you can't do much with the board. Many people suggest avoiding those types of projects altogether (I am one of those :-)

That being said, you can create a second board and use a board filter that limits the work items show on the board to a specific Epic. There are a few limitations, but all of that is explained in this article. 

https://community.atlassian.com/t5/Jira-articles/Creating-a-Second-Agile-Board-for-Team-Managed-or-JIra-Work/ba-p/2115018

[Alex Gerulaitis]

Thank you! Managed to create and save a shared filter, create and save the board based on that filter, but:

Can't make that board universally accessible to all members of the space (or org) in a "business" project.  - must "share" it directly with individual or teams. Creating a "team" and sharing the board with it seems to be the workaround for now.

Thanks again!

[John Funk]

Just create a shortcut and add it there - on the lefthand menu. 

And you are welcome.  :-)

[Alex Gerulaitis]

People I've shared the board with are reporting "Space not found. The space might have been deleted or you don't have permission".

How do I add a shortcut to the left side menu? No "add a shortcut" button there, and adding a shortcut for a space doesn't do anything for the left side menu.

[John Funk]

Sorry, I forgot they moved the Shortcuts to the top menu. 

The users will need access to space (Browse Projects permission inside the Permission scheme) and will need to have the board filter shared with them if it is not already. 

[Alex Gerulaitis]

Not an option for a personal space, and it's not an option to set the location to anything other than a personal space in a "business" "project". As mentioned above sharing the board isn't working either.

So it looks like that for my case, the answer to my title question (kanban for an epic) is "you can't, other than users creating kanban board for themselves on their own."

Unless I am missing something?

[John Funk]

Okay, not sure what I am missing or what is the actual problem at this point of if there are several. Let' solve one at a time. 

What's your first hurdle that you can't do? 

[Alex Gerulaitis]

The goal remains the same as in the OP: a shared Kanban board for an Epic in a team-based "business" project.

That's the hurdle. Following the steps in your article:

1. create a shared filter,
2. create a board based on that shared filter,
3. share the board

... doesn't work at the last step: I can see the board but other people can't, not even when invited directly and navigating to the board via an invitation link. They get the error message I linked to.

I.e. the hurdle remains the same as in the OP.

P.S. It's possible I've done something wrong or missed a step - so perhaps I could create a test space from scratch and try to repro the problem there - when I get some breathing room. At the moment, I just can't wrap my head around the disparity between the seeming simplicity of the task and the complexity (or impossibility?) of a solution.

[John Funk]

Did you share the filter you created in step 1? You have to share the filter for people to be able to see the board.  :-)

[Alex Gerulaitis]

Well, I thought I did... and... I didn't🤦

Apparently (1) changing "Viewers" to e.g. "My organization" and then (2) clicking on "Save" - is not enough, it won't persist. Must click on "Add" before "Save" - then it does.

Thank you - that did it!

[Trudy Claspill]

Hello @Alex Gerulaitis 

You mentioned that it is a Team-managed project, but that is just one aspect of the project type. The other is whether it is a Business, Software, or Service space. Click the ... button next to the space name and look at the last two lines in the pop-up.

The Space type will affect the filtering options.

For instance in a Software space you should see a filter option like this:

That would allow you to show in the board cards for only the items that have as their parent the Epic(s) you checkmark.

The Filter option for a Business space looks quite different.

This space type's filter doesn't support what you are trying to do.

[Alex Gerulaitis]

Thank you, it's "business".

[Trudy Claspill]

Unfortunately, then for that Space type you will not be able to change what is available under the Filter button in the Space's built-in Board view.

As @John Funk mentioned you could create a Saved filter to select the work items from this space, and then create a separate Kanban board based on that saved filter. That new board would have the filtering options available as I showed for a Software space.

You could then add a link to that new board in the Shortcuts tab of your Business space.

[Alex Gerulaitis]

There seems to be something missing:

• the only option for the "location" of a newly created board based on a saved filter is a personal space (not team space).
• This is apparently due to an inherent limitation of a "business" project:
  • "Warning, if your project is 'Business' and not 'Software' type then the project will not appear in the new Board Location drop down list." (link from 2017)
• this means the board will only be visible to others if I directly share it with others - individuals or teams. Can't just share it with all other users and make it universally accessible.

Does this sound right? (Thanks for the help!)

[Trudy Claspill]

Locations for boards created in this manner can only be Personal Spaces or Company Managed spaces. That is called out in the reference article:

That is why I recommended you create a Shortcut to the board.

You need to share the filter for the board with the people/groups/Projects that you want to be able to see the board. Boards themselves are not shared; the filter on which the board is based is shared.

And again, to make it easy to access for the people that normally access the project itself, I recommend that you add a shortcut to the board in the Shortcuts tab of the Business project.

[Trudy Claspill]

Hello @Alex Gerulaitis 

Your post tags indicate you are using a free subscription. Is that accurate?

In such a subscription all projects/spaces are accessible to all licensed users by default. But if at some point you were on a trial or paid Standard or Premium subscription then during that time more restrictive permissions could have been implemented.

For the people with whom you want to "share" this board, are they able to access the project itself and see the work items?

When you set the location of the board to you name you are attaching it to your profile, not to a Jira Space. When @John Funk  said the users need permission he meant to the project you are referencing in the board filter. If the can go to the original Board or List view of the Business project and see the items then they have the necessary permissions for that.

When you attempt to share the filter, what options are you seeing? You should see options to share with Space, Group, My Organization, User, And Private.

[Alex Gerulaitis]

Thank you, all good question, I'll answer what I remember now and get back to the rest when I have a little (more) time to work on this.

Your post tags indicate you are using a free subscription. Is that accurate?

Very. 😀

But if at some point you were on a trial or paid Standard or Premium subscription then during that time more restrictive permissions could have been implemented.

Don't believe so.

For the people with whom you want to "share" this board, are they able to access the project itself and see the work items?

Yes, as long as we remember that the "project" ("space"? "profile"?) the board was saved to was "personal" (the only option) - as you mentioned, not the project (space?) other users are accessing.

When @John Funk  said the users need permission he meant to the project you are referencing in the board filter.

This is a bit confusing to me because if the project is team-based - it means all users automatically have full access to it? Generally, all users seem to have permissions to all projects in the space. They can see the auto-generated Kanban boards for the project. The filter was created within such a project and shared within it as well - I think - but I'll confirm it when I get a chance.

Thanks for the help!

[Trudy Claspill]

Let us see if we can clear up terminology.

Looking at your history in this community it looks like you've been active for a few years 

When you started the "containers" for issues were called Projects. In the past year Atlassian has changed the terminology. Now those containers are called Spaces. Same thing, new name.

When you create a new Board you are required to give the Board a Location. The Location can be set to a Company-managed Software project/space or it can be set to your "profile".

Your profile is not the same thing as a project/space. You can't grant users access to your profile in the same ways you might use to grant users access to a project/space.

Moving on...

In a free Jira subscription all users granted a Jira User role for the app should have the equivalent of Project/Space Administrator access for all projects/spaces. Let's try to double check that for your project.

Navigate to that Business Team-managed project/space. Ask the users with whom you want to share the new board to access the project also. Make sure that they they can see all the same data as you. Get a screen image from the user and take a screen image of what you see. Share those with us, obscuring confidential data.

If you are seeing the same data there, then the next thing to do is get a screen image of how you have set the permission sharing for the Saved Filter you created. Please share that with us.

You said you are not able to share the filter with the project/space. Please get a screen image like the last one I shared in my previous response, and share that with us.

Lastly get a screen image of what you see when you view the new board, and what the users see when they access the new board. Share those with us. Double check that you are both using the same URL. 

Those pieces of information will help us figure out what to check next.

[Alex Gerulaitis]

Thanks again for the help - it was a PEBCAK issue: I didn't save the filter's permission correctly. Once I did - it started working.