US not displayed into timeline

Question

Hi ! 
I am using the timeline view with EPIC and US displayed. However, when I create an US directly through the EPIC, it doesn't display into the timeline. The only way to see the US inside is by creating it from the timeline directly. 
How can i make all US from an EPIC displayed into the timeline ?

Joshua Brock _ Seibert Group_ GmbH · Answer

Hey Arnaud,

Ok good, that rules out the dates theory.

If the stories aren't even showing up in the expanded list under their Epic, the timeline isn't just refusing to draw bars for them, it's filtering them out entirely. So now we're looking for whatever's hiding them.

A few things maybe worth checking:

* Is the project team-managed or company-managed? (Project Settings will tell you.) Timeline behavior is pretty different between the two, and that's often where odd stuff like this comes from.
* Open one missing Story and one visible Story side by side, and compare ...* The Parent field (or "Epic Link" on older company-managed projects)* is it pointing at the right Epic on the missing one?

* The issue type .. * both should be the standard "Story", not a custom variant.

* In the timeline, click the filter/settings icon at the top right and look for "Child issue types". If "Story" isn't checked there, the timeline will hide every Story from the expanded list regardless of dates.

My gut was thinking, creating from the timeline sets up exactly what the timeline expects (right parent link + recognized child type), while creating from inside the Epic does something slightly different, maybe a different parent relationship, maybe a different type and possibly that's what makes the resulting Stories invisible. Again that's my best guess.

Hope this helps!!

Joshua

Arnaud Brons · Answer

Hi Joshua,

Thanks for you help. 
1. One of the undisplayed US has both start date and due date set. Even after refresh, i can't find it. 
2. None of the US with no set date are displayed in the list when everything is expand ...

Joshua Brock _ Seibert Group_ GmbH · Answer

Greetings @Arnaud Brons

My $.02 as to what's most likely happening ... Jira's timeline renders bars based on start and due dates. When you create a User Story directly from the timeline, Jira auto-populates those dates so the bar shows up. When you create the same Story from inside the Epic detail view, no dates are set ... so the Story exists and is correctly linked to its parent Epic, but there's nothing for the timeline to render.

Can you make two quick checks?

Open one of the missing Stories and see if Start date and Due date are blank. If they are, set them and the bar will appear under its Epic in the timeline.

In the timeline, expand each Epic — Stories without dates may still be listed as child rows but won't render a bar.

If you want every Story under an Epic to inherit dates automatically, native Jira doesn't do that out of the box, you'd need some sort of an automation rule like ...

trigger: Issue created, condition: parent is Epic, action: set Start/Due to parent's dates

For teams that need Epic → Story planning across sprints, releases, or Program Increments without depending on individual issue dates, this is where Agile Hive (agile-hive.com) is a much cleaner fit:

Stories appear in PI Planning and Roadmap views by virtue of being assigned to a sprint and parent Epic — no individual start/due dates required to render.

Epic → Story → Task hierarchy is enforced by the data model, with full visibility across the planning board and roadmap views.

Dependencies, risks, and capacity are tracked at every level, all natively in Jira (no separate system of record or standalone tool).

If your team is heading toward Scaled Agile / SAFe® or already there, it's worth a look. You can find more information on our free trial on the Atlassian Marketplace.

Disclosure: I work at Seibert Group, the team behind Agile Hive.

Hope this helps...best of luck!

Joshua
Content Writer & US Representative
Agile Hive and Aura Apps (products of Seibert Group GmbH)