How to change the finished states of subtasks of epics in a kanban board?

Question

Hi

I have created a Kaban style board with several columns one of them is the "Finished" /"done" last column.

In this board the main tasks are epics. How can I change the representation of subtasks of those epics. For each of the other columns I create one subtask per step. So the different states that I can set the subtasks  to make no sense other than "done" state.

Let's say you have a board that is about cleaning the floor. A different person does each subtask.

Board has these states:

* Vacuum Cleaning
* Wipe Cleaning
* Polishing
* Finished state is called "The house is Clean".

The epic is Cleaning Jana's Mansion Entrance.

So now the Epic has 4 subtasks for each state.

Now those subtask only can only be set to these 4 above mentioned states in my jira. I just want to set the state of the subtask Vacuum Cleaning to finished.

Because otherwise in the epic it will say "Status of "Vacuum Cleaning": The house is clean. But that's incorrect. A simple "Done" would be better. So state "The house is clean" makes no sense for the vacuum cleaning subtask.

Is this possible if I have a custom name for the "Finished" collumn in a board?

John Funk · Answer

Hi Thomas - Welcome to the Atlassian Community!

I am not sure that I completely following what you have setup and what you are trying to accomplish. So I have some questions first.

1. Is this a Next-gen project or a Classic Software project?

2. Why are you using Sub-tasks under an Epic and not Stories or other similar task level issue types?

3. I assume you have different workflows for the Epic and Sub-task workflows. How are those different?

4. Finally, what is keeping you from moving the Sub-task to Done?

Bill Sheboy · Answer

Hi @Thomas Lerch -- Welcome to the Atlassian community!

Reading over your explanation and questions, I am not understanding the problem you are trying to solve.  Let's try this:

Often when teams use epics and child items (tasks, stories, and bugs), there are two views on their process: the higher epic-level and the lower delivery-level (tasks, stories, and bugs). When you try to put both process levels on one board, it can be confusing and problematic.

Some things you describe as "states": vacuum cleaning, wipe cleaning, etc.

* If those are status/column "states" on the board, I would expect a single work item to move, column to column, as the work is done
* If instead those are sub-items of the parent, such as "Cleaning Jana's Mansion Entrance", I would only expect columns like ToDo, In Progress, and Done... with the work flowing across the board for each sub-item: vacuum cleaning, wipe cleaning, etc.

Would you clarify which case, or another, applies?  Thank you.

Best regards,

Bill