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How do we link a task to a story

John Houser_dfq7xt

Newbie here.

I piloting Jira before adopting for a wider team, and have most of Jira figured out.

I have searched, and I have been unsuccessful finding out exactly what setting I need to change in order to link a TASK to a STORY.

I am looking to do this type of hierarchy:

jira hierarchy.jpg

And when I click on the three dots on the TASK and select Add Parent

add parent.jpg

I only get the option to add an Epic parent, not a Story parent.

epic only.jpg

Any help would be appreciated! Thanks!

Accepted answers

Kristján Geir Mathiesen

Hi @John Houser and welcome to the Community!

On the Story, you click on Link Issue and enter the issue key of the Task and choose the type of linkage you want it to be (Blocks, Relates to, ...). Or you can do the same on the Task but enter the Story key there.

HTH,
KGM

All comments

Kristján Geir Mathiesen

Hi @John Houser and welcome to the Community!

HTH,
KGM

Bill Sheboy

Hi @John Houser -- Welcome to the Atlassian Community!

Based upon your hierarchy example image, you may instead want to use the Jira issue types:

Epic
- Story
  - Sub-task

Tasks in Jira are at the same level as Story and Bug (defect), and so can only be connected with links, as @Kristján Geir Mathiesen describes. Sub-tasks are child items of a Story, Task, or Bug.

Kind regards,
Bill

John Houser_dfq7xt

Thank you @Bill Sheboy I was using that. We were hoping to have the tasks visible on the board and move across the board during the sprint.

John Houser_dfq7xt

@Kristján Geir Mathiesen - Thank you!

Yes, this is what we were looking for!

story link.jpg

Thank you again!

Rose Alcolea

Hi John,

You can do that by configuring your board so it shows sub-tasks. In your Board Configuration, go to Card Layout and under Backlog choose "Sub-Tasks" and add it.

Hope this helps!

Michael Figueras

Thank you for this. I have been on different JIRA courses and this was not mentioned. Appreciate the help.

Philip Couling

I'd have two concerns with this approach:

The inevitable cognitive dissonance in placing "subtasks" under "stories" and not "subtasks" under "tasks" as any native english speaker would naturally understand these concepts.
Effectively removing the availability of subtasks for their intended purpose: breaking up large tasks.

Brian Nelson

This may be new functionality since the previous replies above, but you can do what was requested these days if you don't mind using the SubTask type:

Open the Task and click the little icon beside the task name to change issue type.

There you can select to convert it to a Sub-Task. From there you will be prompted which Parent object to link it to, and you can then enter the Story id to link it to.

Yes this will change a Task to a Sub-Task. The hirearchy restrictions mentioned by Bill Sheboy still seem to be present.

Gary Walvin_tozstw

This doesn't make any sense.

I have a story.
I have tasks to be done to fulfill it.
I have subtasks that break down what needs to be done to fulfill the tasks.

Tasks and Stories really shouldn't live at the same level.

Natalie Franklin

I agree! It makes it confusing to structure -

Rishabh Jain_032677

@Kristján Geir Mathiesen Can I do the related to activity in bulk for multiple tasks in one go?

Ryan Heath_xf3ggl

https://community.atlassian.com/t5/Jira-articles/Difference-and-use-cases-of-Jira-issue-types-Epic-vs-Story-vs/ba-p/1655157

Suggests that Tasks and Stories are NOT on the same level as some suggested

Ryan Heath_xf3ggl

For the record, lots of other official posts suggest they ARE, so who knows!

k894

That's exactly how I read it, yet the Timeline / Gantt shows Stories and Tasks at the same hierarchy / semantic level. Very confusing ... or adaptable, if you see things that way.

Diogo Miloco

The way I'm interpreting this is that they serve different purposes, the story being the value for the business and the task being a deliverable, like something concrete to be done, code, design, etc. So, tasks and stories may have a many-to-many relationship. For instance, to fulfill a given story, let's suppose we have to implement a role-based system for two different business requirements that are going to use roles. If that's the case, I have a single task related to two stories. If we use hierarchically tasks and stories, we couldn't have the flexibility to do this. So, I believe the best approach would be to relate the work instead of putting the work inside the story.

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