Epics with multiple Teams hidden from Sprint Board

Aprildelay

We have several Teams using the Team field (with Plan View, previously known as Advanced Roadmaps). We use this field to filter/create our sprint boards.

For example: Sprint Board Apples filter is Team = Apples. Sprint Board Oranges filter is Team = Oranges

Here is the problem. Our work is made up like this:

• Epic A: assigned to Team Apples
  • Story 1 assigned to Team Apples
  • Story 2 assigned to Team Apples
  • Story 3 assigned to Team Oranges

But story 3 will not appear on the Oranges Sprint Board. This is because the parent Epic as assigned to Team Apples. I can still put Story 3 in Sprint Orange, but it's just not visible. 

I don't think the customer will allow us to not assign Epics to a Team. Is this a bug or expected behavior? Solution ideas?

Walter Buggenhout

Hi @Aprildelay

I believe your last sentence is a slight hint towards an alternative you already seem to be considering that might work.

As you explain, there is something wrong with the way your work is made up. If you say at the epic level that Epic A is owned by team Apples, then assigning Story 3 below that epic to team Oranges is - in a binary logic - not correct. I am not saying that this can't be a reality, it is just not correct. If you add stories in the epic to different teams, the binary logic would result in the epic being assigned to both / multiple teams.

Since I think you can't assign a single epic to multiple teams, leaving the epic unassigned (or marking it with a bespoke custom field as e.g. a cross-team epic) would allow you to query for it in the team backlogs. It is a sort of convention you could consider to agree upon.

As an example, assuming you do leave the team field empty for cross-team epics, you could configure your board filter for team Apples like this:

(issuetype = Epic and (Team = Apples OR Team IS EMPTY)) OR (issuetype != Epic
AND Team = Apples)

Since you tagged your question as Data Center and if you have Scriptrunner, you could also use the issuesInEpics function to search like this:

issuetype != Epic AND Team = Oranges OR 
issueFunction in epicsOf("Team = Oranges")

This last example should retrieve all issues and epics related to Team Oranges. But again, you would need to have Scriptrunner running in order to unlock that search option.

Hope this helps!