Creating a board with only subtasks

Question

I am running customer site deployments in a single Jira project. I have introduced the following hierarchy:

* Epic: * Site (for example: Factory A in Brazil)

* Task: * Factory Line X
* Factory Line Y
* Factory Line Z

* Subtask: * Mechanical Installation (Installation subtask type)
* Network Integration (Network subtask type)
* Model Deployment (Model building subtask type)

I am trying to visualize all substask from the model building subtask type into a single Kanban board. However I keep running in the same problem, where I can never visualize the subtasks without its task parent filter.

For example, a business project board visualizes it like this:

A software project board visualizes it like this, it is a little better:

Ideally, I would like to have the subtasks visualized in the kanban board with both task and epic visualized in the task card.

Are there any other options I can explore?

Paul Glantschnig _Appfire_ · Answer

Hi @Karel van Leeuwe ,

Great question. The native board limitations your team has hit are real (as your replies confirm), so here's another angle if you'd like to explore it.

If you're open to solutions from the Atlassian Marketplace, JXL for Jira offers a table/sheet view that sidesteps the swimlane constraints entirely. You can display all your levels (Epic → Site → Factory Line → Model Deployment subtask) in a single sheet, expand or collapse any level you want, and show any field on each row. No swimlane nesting needed.

You'd set up a custom hierarchy to organize by your Epic, Site (Task), and Factory Line (Task) levels, then filter to show only Model Deployment subtasks. Each row shows the full path and can display Status, Assignee, or any custom field for that subtask. You can also link to the card on a dashboard if needed.

This gif shows the full hierarchy, but you can easily configured a structure that only shows items on subtask level as well.

Disclosure: I work for the team that builds JXL.

Cheers,

Paul

Shaik Riyaz · Answer

Hi @Karel van Leeuwe,

By default, Jira Kanban boards group subtasks inside Stories/Parent swimlanes. If your board filter only selects subtasks (issuetype = "Model Deployment"), the parent tasks are excluded, causing Jira to hide the subtasks because their parent swimlane cannot be rendered.

Company-Managed Projects

Disable Parent Swimlanes:

* Go to Board Settings > Swimlanes.
* Change Base Swimlanes on from Stories to None.

Update Board Filter (JQL):

project = "YOUR_PROJECT_KEY" AND issuetype = "Model Deployment" ORDER BY Rank ASC

Check Column Mapping:

* Go to Board Settings > Columns.
* Make sure all statuses used by your subtask workflow are mapped to columns.

Note: Team-managed boards do not support standalone subtask cards. You will need to either create a standalone board from an existing filter pointing to those subtasks or promote the subtasks to standard issue types (Tasks).

Thanks!!

Gabriela - LeanZero · Answer

Hi Karel, the lane per parent you're seeing comes from the board's Group setting, so what you want is a board that only pulls in the Model building subtasks and has grouping turned off. In a company-managed space you can edit the board's filter to something like project = X AND issuetype = "Model building". If it's team-managed, the board's own filter can't be edited, so save that filter and use Create board to build a separate board from it; when I tried that on a team-managed one, putting the board on my profile worked, while picking the project as its location gave me a broken board. With Group set to None, each subtask becomes its own card with the parent task's key and summary shown above it.

The epic is harder. Subtask cards don't show it natively. What I got working on a company-managed board is a short text field called Site, shown on the card through Card layout (Board settings > Card layout, or View settings on the board if it opens in the newer board view), filled by an automation rule on Work item created for the Model building type that sets it to {{issue.parent.epic.summary}}. It only fires on create, so you'd backfill the existing ones once. I haven't tested that part against a team-managed project, so I'd try it on one subtask before rolling it out.