Splitting a Jira Epic

Suzanne Butman

I'm a Delivery Product Manager and work with several application teams who I create Features for work requests using Jira Align. My POs then create/assign their User Stories to these Features (Jira Epics) using JIRA.

We now have an organizational change where Prod Mngrs/myself are required to use JIRA and not Jira Align to create Features (Jira Epics).

There is option in Jira Align to split a Feature and we Product Mngrs use this often. Is the 'splitting a Feature' functionality also available in JIRA?  Please Advise

Hector Florin

Hi Suzanne,
Welcome to the community! I hope you're doing well.

In Jira, you can split standard work items. However, for Epics this option does not exists.

To split your Epics, you'll need to do that manually:

1. Create a New Epic
   • Use a naming convention like:
     Epic Name - Part 2 or Epic Name (Split)
   • Add context in the description: "Split from Epic ABC-123 due to size/scope."
2. Move Some Issues
   • Move user stories or tasks from the original Epic to the new one using bulk change or manually via the Epic Link field.
   • In Advanced Roadmaps, this can also be managed visually.
3. Link the Two Epics
   • Add an issue link between the original and the new Epic using “relates to” or “is split from.”

 

For standard work items, the native option that Jira has is the following:

Go to your board, select the work item, and right-click on it to display the options.
At the bottom, you'll find "Split work item"

 

Then, you can select how many work items you want to split them into

 

I hope it helps.

Thank you.

Regards,
Hector