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Grouping Epics Kanban Board per the parent Initiative

Ran Lavi (Methoda)

This is related to feature suggestion: https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/JRACLOUD-94881

The customer has two Kanban boards: One for Initiatives, another for Epics. Both are ordered by rank.
The customer ranks the Initiatives on the Kanban board.
Then each Initiative is broken down into Epics.
The customer then goes to the Epics board and would like to see the epics of the top ranked Inititiatives appear at the top of the Epics board.

If the customer would be able to group the Epics board per Initiative (same as stories board can be grouped per Epic), that would solve the problem, assuming the swimlanes are ordered correctly per the ranking of the Initiative.

Does anybody have a simple suggestion how to workaround this?

We can solve this using a Forge app that will automatically rank the child epics per the parent Initiatives, but I am wondering if there is a simpler solution.

Automation rule cannot handle this. Too complex use case.

Accepted answers

Anwesha Pan

Yeah Forge app is the best way to move forward and as you said @Ran Lavi (Methoda) Cluade can do it easily for you 😉

All comments

Mark DE BONT

Did you try query-based swimlanes? If this is a company-managed board:

Open Board settings → Swimlanes → Queries.
Create a swimlane for each Initiative, using JQL such as issuetype = Epic AND parent = INIT-123

Isabelle Ruivo dos Santos

Hi @Ran Lavi (Methoda)

The other suggestion (JQL query swimlanes) is the right starting point, so here is what to add to make it hold up in your case:

Order the lanes by Initiative rank. Create one lane per Initiative (parent = INIT-1, parent = INIT-2, ...) and drag them in the same order as your Initiative board. Add a final catch-all lane (e.g. issuetype = Epic) so Epics without a matching Initiative don't disappear.
Avoid manual upkeep with a rule. Lanes are static, so when you re-rank Initiatives you have to reorder them by hand. If that happens often, an Automation rule can copy the parent Initiative's key or rank into a custom field on each Epic. Then you can sort or filter by that field instead of editing lanes. It won't create lanes automatically, though.
Fully automatic = app. Native grouping by parent Initiative doesn't exist yet (JRACLOUD-94881), so a Forge/Marketplace app is the only way to keep it synced with zero maintenance.

Hope this helps!

Anwesha Pan

Hi @Ran Lavi (Methoda)

Here are few more suggestions:

Option 1: Use Jira Plans (Advanced Roadmaps). If you have Jira Cloud Premium or Enterprise, Jira Plans is designed specifically for this multi-level hierarchy and ranking challenge.

Create a Plan that includes the scope of your Initiatives and Epics projects.
Set the hierarchy view to show Initiatives ➔ Epics.
In Plans, dragging and ranking an Initiative automatically groups and sequences the child Epics beneath it according to that parent rank.
You can view this as a Timeline, Hierarchy List, or Kanban/Status grouped view.

Option 2: Quick Filters per Initiative

Under Board Settings —> Quick Filters, add filters for top Initiatives as mentioned by Isabelle (e.g., parent = INIT-101).
Users can click one or more Quick Filter buttons at the top of the Epics board to instantly isolate child Epics of specific top-ranked Initiatives.

Option 3: Jira Automation via Jira Agile Rank REST API. While Jira Automation's standard UI actions cannot dynamically rank issues relative to parent ranks, you can use a lightweight Automation rule using the Send web request action against Jira’s native Agile Rank API:

Trigger: Issue ranked (on the Initiative board).
Action: Send a Web Request (PUT /rest/agile/1.0/issue/rank) with payload specifying:

     {

       "issues": ["CHILD-EPIC-KEY-1", "CHILD-EPIC-KEY-2"],

       "rankAfterIssue": "LOWER_RANKED_EPIC_KEY"

     }

I hope this helps & resolves your issue. 🙂

Thanks,
Anwesha

Ran Lavi (Methoda)

Thanks, this is not practical, as the list of initiatives is dynamic, and there are dozens or even hundreds of initiatives, so creating those swimlanes one by one manually is not practical.

(and there is no way to do it via API)

Ran Lavi (Methoda)

Thank you @Isabelle Ruivo dos Santos for putting the time to answer me in detail. I appreciate it. Yes, that's what I thought, we'll have to develop the Forge app (not a big deal in the AI era, Claude can do it easily, if I give it a good spec).

Ran Lavi (Methoda)

Thank you @Anwesha Pan for putting the time to answer me in detail. I appreciate it.

All the suggestions other than the Forge App are not practical or feasible.

We'll have to develop the Forge app (not a big deal in the AI era, Claude can do it easily, if I give it a good spec).

Anwesha Pan

Yeah Forge app is the best way to move forward and as you said @Ran Lavi (Methoda) Cluade can do it easily for you 😉

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