"Create issue in epic" function for epic level Issue Types in custom issue hierarchy

[Rune Rasmussen]

We're playing around with Jira Software Premium, and planning on enabling it in production soon.

We can create custom issue hierarchy levels with the Advanced Roadmap, but if we add another issue type on the Epic level that new issue type doesn't have the "Create issue in epic" option, like a regular epic has. It only has the "Create sub-task" option, like any other issue type has.
This behavior also goes for any hierarchy levels above Epic.

Are we missing something, or is this just not possible?
If it is just not possible, are anyone aware of a feature suggestion we can go and vote for?

I've tried searching and googling, but found nothing specific for this.

[Mark Segall · Accepted solution]

Hi @Rune Rasmussen - Epic is a special issue type and there is no ability to create one like it.  I've found no matter how complex the project, I have not required a second epic-like issue type.  Perhaps you can share more context as to why you need a second epic issue type?

[Rune Rasmussen]

Specifically...

our Marketing department is handling campaigns in their Jira project.
The Marketing department consists of a handful of different teams.

Currently the Epics in the marketing project is set up with all the one hundred million fields that is needed to track all the stuff they track.
That is very good for the two teams that actually manage the campaigns.

One of the other teams handle some of the child issues of the epics/campaigns, but that's only around 25% of their work.
Other tasks they handle are both lengthy and complex, and could benefit from being Epics, but because the screen scheme already have all the campaign related fields, adding more fields would only cause confusion for all parties involved.

So that's our specific need for this.

Alternatively the other team from Marketing will have to work in their own separate project, and then have a board that pulls issues from the marketing project.
Doable, but not entirely optimal.

But also...

there's the argument that it's probably not unreasonable to expect that when you can add more issue types to the Epic level, they get the same functionality, and that issue types on higher levels from your custom hierarchy would have the "create issue in epic" functionality.

Not having it makes it feel sort of like an afterthought, or something grafted onto a product that wasn't designed to do it.

I'm happy with the option to create custom hierarchies, and adding multiple issue types to the Epic and custom levels, but being stuck with manually creating each issue and fiddling around with the "Parent link" field doesn't feel like a great usability experience.

[Mark Segall]

Thanks for the additional context.  This is helpful.

The thing with epics is that they do more than just offer a parent/child hierarchy.  There are additional features such as specific automation features, the Epic pane in the UI, etc.  

As to your dilemma.  Perhaps the campaigns to be their own "Campaign" issue type  that sits above the epic in the issue hierarchy.  Then the epics are kept clean for any work that goes on beneath them. 

[Rune Rasmussen]

We did consider creating a "campaign" issue type and putting it a level above epics, but the levels above epics don't show on the regular roadmap, so that'll be a hard sell for the managers that just need a quick overview where the advanced roadmap would be overkill.

With that said though, the specifics of our current dilemma is just what prompted my question.

Our general issue is that there seems to be an incoherence, or disconnect, in the way custom issue types on the epic level or above behaves.