How do we make the Epic Report more usable?

Question

We create an epic long before we actually plan to start the work. Planning takes place over a month or two before we begin executing.

I would absolutely love to use more of the charts and visualizations of my epics (and sprints for that matter), but they can be ridiculously unnecessary to read (see screenshot).

Is there any way to fix this? What should have done instead? Only create an epic when we're about to start?

Why does this chart not have date controls like the Control Chart?

Jeff Johnson_jmu7kr · Answer

Thanks Petterson,

My day has been ok thank you. I hope yours is good too.

That been said, to avoid the empty data on the report I recommend you to create your Epic and issues right before you start your work.

Ok, I'll do this going forward.

Is there any work around for fixing this right now? Like, could I create a new epic? Would that cause me to lose vital data? (like maybe the data since the actual start of the epic?)

Or am I just SoL?

Petter Gonçalves · Answer

Hello Jeff,

Hope you are having a nice day.

Unfortunately, the Date/time range for the Epic reports is not editable.

The Epic reports display a list of complete, incomplete and unestimated issues through the entire Epic lifecycle. It is particularly useful in planning work for an epic that may extend over multiple sprints, as mentioned in the report documentation:

- Epic Report Documentation

A suggestion was raised to implement the ability to customize the time range for the Epic Report in 2013, however, it was not accomplished due to the limited demand on this (Only three votes during 5 years):

- As a user, I would like to be able to select the time range of viewing for the Epic Report, so I can refine the results I am looking at

That been said, to avoid the empty data on the report I recommend you to create your Epic and issues right before you start your work.

If it is a complex scenario where you will take a lot of time to create and properly set the Epics and Stories information, you can add your issues information to a CSV and then import in a single shot all the Epics together with its Stories or create all the issues in a scratch project before Cloning/transitioning it to the production one.

Let me know if you still have any questions.