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I want to show subtasks in the scrum backlog

Costin Ghita

I just started my trial period and I find doing the most simplest things very hard (or counter-intuitive).

For example, I want to see the child tasks of a certain task from backlog or sprint and I wasted more than an hour trying to configure it.

So, I would appreciate if anyone can tell me how to do that.

Thank You.

Accepted answers

Andy Heinzer

Hi everyone,
Over the last 5 years this topic has racked up a lot of views. In an effort to try to better serve users that come across this post, here is an updated answer.

TL:DR
Only classic Kanban type boards are currently able to display subtask issue types in the backlog. Classic Scrum type boards are not able to show subtasks in the backlog, nor are next-gen project boards able to show these in the backlog.

The longer answer:
I understand that many users that come across this thread are looking for a specific way to configure this. Unfortunately, this is not possible for all board types. That said, most other board types can still show subtasks in the Active Sprint or Board view. But when it comes to viewing the backlog on a board, only classic Kanban currently has this ability. We are tracking feature requests for this, but depending on your platform, there are different places to watch/track this:

For Jira Server or Data Center users, please see our feature request for this over in JSWSERVER-7992
For Jira Software Cloud users that want to see this in a classic Scrum board, please see our feature request for this in JSWCLOUD-7992
For Jira Cloud users that want this within a next-gen project, please see JSWCLOUD-18393

Certainly watching those threads and voting on the respective issue that applies to your product and platform can be helpful in providing additional feedback and guidance to our different product development teams.

Cheers,
Andy

All comments

Nic Brough -Adaptavist-

You can't.

The logic is quite simple - there's no need to see sub-tasks in the backlog. You prioritise (i.e. shift the backlog around) at a story level. By definition, if you have subtasks on a lower priority story, they cannot be more important than the subtasks on a higher level story. As you don't need to prioritise subtasks at that level, showing them in the backlog is just noise, so the board doesn't bother. (You can re-order them on the story)

On the technical error, no, a trial is the full version, and Atlassian keep it right up to date. It is a form of beta or test-bed in some ways - Cloud gets regular deployments of the latest code every few weeks. But it's tested code that Atlassian have a lot of confidence in. If you continue to get these errors, I'd log it with support though, as getting them repeatedly is an indication of a failure on the server, and they need to look at those whether it's a trial or not.

Costin Ghita

@Nic Brough [Adaptavist]

"showing them in the backlog is just noise" - it is not noise because by default will be collapsed under the story.

"there's no need to see sub-tasks in the backlog" - there are people that check the backlog/sprints (upper management, customers that are billed based on that stories, etc); they see an estimate for a story and it seems to much (or too little); seeing just under the subtasks helps; (or maybe the story was badly split into subtasks, etc.) Just seeing them there is very useful.

Or maybe it is the wrong place to see that; it there another place where I can see the entire Epics -> stories/tasks -> subtasks tree?

Nic Brough -Adaptavist-

I don't think a backlog view of a story is the right place to be re-estimating stories. The backlog view is for prioritisation and planning a sprint. If a story is the wrong size, then you'd normally go into it so you can re-size it based on all the information on it. A summary, even with a pile of sub-tasks, doesn't usually tell you enough to re-size it.

The second point is much the same as the first. If you need the detail, you probably need all of it. The backlog is for planning, not micromanagement, billing or the other stuff that probab;y means you should be looking at the issue.

The short answer is that you simply don't need sub-tasks on the backlog.

Andy K1

Not being able to show tasks in the backlog view, even as a customizable option, is a big issue. The argument @Nic Brough [Adaptavist] makes – "there's no need to see sub-tasks in the view" is too far-reaching. It's like saying "there's no need for you to have orange juice".

The way I manage my sprints depends on me being able to see all my subtasks in the backlog in a list, and there's nothing inherently incorrect about it.

That reason is simple to understand as well – I may have a story that that spans multiple sprints and I want to decide which tasks to pull into a sprint. Now you may not think that that is a good way to manage stories, but I've collected enough data to show that it does. Presently there isn't a view that contains all my stories and it's subtasks (backlog + current sprint). The "backlog" view, a misnomer since it contains the sprint as well, comes close but doesn't contain subtasks.

A view is a view, a collection of objects on the screen that makes it convenient for a user to manage data, and ultimately decisions, on a screen. You and I can differ on what that is, but Atlassian needs to recognize that here instead of imposing what it thinks is the best way for me to manage sprints.

we like to quickly skim the sprint tree and understand the total amount hours required for each story and then prioritize them. The parent story current does not include the subtask hours.

we kind of use kanban and sprint toegether. Moving the story around does not update the Kanban board. Can you advise.

Nic Brough -Adaptavist-

Ah, now that's related to a different problem. JIRA Software essentially does not support estimating at sub-task levels. Move the estimates up and it'll work quite well.

"Moving the story around does not update the Kanban board" suggests that your boards are configured in a way that means some updates don't appear. We'd have to have a closer look at the configs to help you with that one.

Lakshmi S

@Nic Brough [Adaptavist] I am trying a slightly different situation - I have a story which is being worked on by multiple roles in my team ( a UI designer, an API developer, an Android developer etc). I have one or more sub-tasks for each of these teams in my story. I used component to identify whom the subtask was meant for. I would have liked to have a board which shows each team what the status of each sub-task was. What is the best way to do it

Rodrigo Silva_u76vip

As for the latest jira software version, although its not possible to see subtasks on the backlog as an independent line (and, agreeing with @Nic Brough, you shouldn't be prioritizing subtasks as independent items), it IS POSSIBLE to list subtasks of a given issue, and that may help to prioritize the issue, based on subtasks count, for example. It's a matter of adding the field to the backlog view:

This way, on your backlog view, you should see subtasks this way:

Rodrigo Silva_u76vip

I think the best approach here would be to add query swimlanes to a board, based on components. Something like this:

The board will then look like this:

It should be noted that subtasks belonging to more than one component will be showed on the board on the top configured swimlane.

It should be also noted that the board filter must include issues of the required subtask issue type .

Eric_Mertens

Funny i encountered the same request today....and was looking for a veryfing answer in the community, however i can't find that...which is a bummer because the thing is, i think it depends on the type of board you use. And before anyone starts rambling and posing their opinion this what i found and encountered.

Team One uses a Scrum board in Jira and it doesnot show the sub-tasks in the backlog view, just the parent. Perfect nothing wrong there...

Team Two uses an Kanban board in Jira and it DOES show the sub-tasks in the backlog view. It features this little hook, when you click on it the subtasks are shown.......

So if the functionality is in there for Kanban why not for Scrum??

Because in my opinion this is usefull!

Lakshmi S

Thanks Rodrigo, for your response. Rewording my question:

I have a story S with 3 sub-tasks T1,T2 and T3. T1,T2 are associated to a component API. S is to be completed in Sprint 1. I have not started Sprint 1 yet.

I defined my board as based on the query : component = API

I expected to see : S with T1 and T2 displayed for the current sprint. But that does not happen. None of S,T1 and T2 are displayd

Nic Brough -Adaptavist-

Have you added the field to the card layout?

Rodrigo Silva_u76vip

Hi Lakshmi,

Try to run the same filter used on your board at "Search for issues" screen. Can you see your issues and subtasks there?

Joe Harmon_y3pgen

The thing that is funny to me about this whole thing is that they actually provide this feature with seeing subtasks on the planning board through their Kanban board. So Atlassian thinks it is important enough to have it there but not important enough to have it on the scrum board.

You have been asking why it is important to have. I'll give you that answer. It allows you to prioritize the sub-tasks within a task. It doesn't allow you to prioritize a subtask above another task. So that argument doesn't even hold water. The feature is there. Why can't you apply it to your whole system rather than half of it.

anitescu

I agree that it would help. At least as a reducible drop down.

Frederik Wagner

I have a question: Is it possible to add a figure on the "main task box" to show how many sub-tasks there are? I want to do this to know which tasks to priorities on the Kanban Backlog board.

Jan_Denny

Another possible justification for at least displaying subtasks in the backlog view:

The Planning Poker Plus add-on by Spartez cannot display any subtask info (ex. Key, Summary) in an asynchronous planning poker session because it pulls all its poker display info from the Jira backlog. That means when my team is estimating stories in Planning Poker, they won't even know if a story has a dozen subtasks unless they opt to click the story key to open the story (which very few will do). Consequently, lots of surprises during the planning meeting when my team realizes they underestimated a story that has a lot of subtasks.

I'm making an assumption here, but if Atlassian can add the subtask relationship to the Backlog view, perhaps Spartez can then include it in their asynchronous poker sessions.

Here's Spartez' response on this issue, dated 10 May 2019:

Hi Jan,

Thanks for getting back to us with that information. We understand the issue now. Subtasks can be viewed in an interactive session, but not in an asynchronous session.

The reason for this is that we are pulling the information for Agile Poker from the backlog view. In a Scrum project, subtasks aren't visible on the backlog. So we can't display or estimate them. (more on that here)

It is possible to view and also estimate subtasks with Agile Poker if you are using a Kanban board. You could actually create a kanban board for this project, and estimate these subtasks from there. But we recognize this isn't an ideal workaround.

In the meantime, we do have a feature request open to allow estimating subtasks from a Scrum board. We have linked this ticket to that, and if any progress is made there we'll notify you - although we can't make any promises as to if or when this will be implemented.

Sorry we don't have better news. Please let us know if there's anything else we can do for you - we'll be happy to help.

Best regards,
William Schoepflin
Spartez Support Team

Charles Lang

I am new to Jira and wanted to add on to this conversation because we are using Jira Cloud and I came across this same issue, but with the Default Business Board. We are using the board to manage work of different IT Infrastructure groups and have a component for each group.

For this discussion please understand that I use Issue and Task interchangeably.

We may have an Issue (task) like "Close out old Change Tickets" that has a subtask for each component which equates to each of the group managers. This subtask allows each manager to complete the subtask , yet the issue (task) would not be complete until all subtasks have been completed by the managers.

Managers use the Board to see their WIP, but when they view their issues (tasks) on the board, they do not see the subtasks. They can see them by going to the issues section, but this in my opinion is counter productive to the board and seeing the work in progress.

There is no way to change options for the default Business Board, which I don't understand. A Business Board has nothing really to do with all of the discussion above regarding if subtasks should be show on a board or not. I'm not using Kanban or Scrum, just the default business board for manager work tasks.

Is there some way to show subtasks on a Business Board?

Thanks,

Charles

Michael Kornatzki

Hi there,

i am a newbee with the scrum-board and agile working.

In the past we use a bug-issue for the main-development-branch and sub-bugs for every version (branch) we had to fix the bug.
Normally we only have the description in the main-bug no need to duplicate it in sub-bugs.

How do we do it now with scrum?

Should we now create multiple bug-issues and link them together?
We want the ability to see in which version the bug is fixed.
We need a status for every version.

Thanks.

Mirek

I have been using Agile and Jira for about a decade (when there was Greenhopper even, no Boards that most of people from this topic probably do not know - except @Nic Brough -Adaptavist- probably) and I have my point of view on this. I was reading this topic and I think it was nice peace of discussion, so just to clarify of some perspectives...

From the Agile perspective (in short):

Team (responsible for delivering specific tasks) have specific velocity and after time knows how much they can take to do specific tasks. There is also a project owner that works with the business (and stakeholders) should be aware what team is doing and prepare backlog for future sprints. By looking at burndown charts, velocity, team competences and availability we do planning and estimating. We also know how much time we have for each sprint - Usually from 1-4 weeks. We estimate Stories (not sub-tasks). If a story is created as a specific "wish" - e.g "As a user I would like to see a button here and here, so that other team members can do this and that.. " then it is really good and does not need to have sub-tasks - those however I understand might be useful for someone that is working on it later after sprint started. We got demo meetings and retrospective meetings for some purpose, so that on next planning meeting we know how to estimate (if the story was for example not completed). The whole team is learning together how to plan, estimate and avoid big stories that should be already broken down into smaller ones. If we follow pure Scrum then we do not need to have sub-tasks in the view.

From Atlassian perspective:

Questions like "Why if Kanban have this feature, Scrum cannot" from user perspective are fine, since we think that you have the code already, simply copy and paste it and vioola! .. No, that is not the case. Every feature that a software development team create (or build) need to be analyzed, tested and maintained later, so if in any way the request is not having value comparing to others it stays in the backlog (simple scrum thinking). Someone behind decide what we have and what features would be build based on current velocity and resources. And speaking of "what we have" ..

From Jira perspective:

Yes, it is possible to show somehow sub-tasks on the Backlog with some details. You can see which tickets have sub-tasks and see details. Below is a screenshot.

Of course there there might be people that say that this is not how it suppose to be showing, but I would say - yes it is there. It is in the backlog. No need to discuss if you extend the list on the backlog view (like in the Kanban view) or seeing the list of sub-task on the right panel. This is there. For me it is enough. I personally do not need sub-tasks in the backlog view, but if I just want to know if there are any I can simply get this view and be satisfied.

Simon Akbari_ui7f8p

Hi Mirek,

could you please post "how to"-steps for dummies on how to configure that view that is shown in your left screenshot?

That would be very helpful!

Thank you in advance ^^.

Mirek

There is actually only one screenshot (on view), but I guess you would like to achieve how to show the key on the story card. In that case the solution (step by step) was already provided by @Rodrigo Silva (see posts above)

unknown

Hi there,

Not sure if anyone has answered this but it is more than possible to show sub-task in a sprint backlog using JQL. For example, in my project consists of the following issue types: Story, Bug, Quality Improvement, Task and Sub Task.

I only want to see Story, Quality Improvement, Task and Sub Tasks in my backlog, so my JQL fo rthis is: project = "BA Quality Assurance" AND issuetype in (Story, Sub-task, Task, "Quality Improvement") ORDER BY Rank ASC.

With this query, I can now view sub-tasks (and all the other mentioned issue types as per the JQL) in my active sprint board.

Hope this helps.

subtask (2).png

unknown

the main issue of your "solution" is that its not a solution to the problem people encounter at all. Yeah great, you get the issue IDs - that tell you absolutely nothing about what the task is about.

I really don't get why on almost every single question people in my company ask me (in this case: "I just want to see in the backlog in a glance which tasks are included in specific stories, why does this work on another board and not in mine?") I search for solutions in your forums and the main two answers are

a) you're using the product wrong (even getting to the point of intentionally misinterpreting the initial question) or
b) it's not needed/not viable/there's a plugin for this functionality.

This simple request has been asked for years now, and I honestly doubt that its a matter of maintaining the feature - we all work in product management somehow, and well, bringing the same dropdown view over from Kanban boards to Scrum boards isn't rocket science.

"For me it is enough. I personally do not need sub-tasks in the backlog view" this is the whole problem - you don't seem to listen to your user base much.

unknown

You have shared the screenshot of sprint board, not the backlog. All the discussion above is about the backlog view

Peter Jones_kswyqy

Welcome to the Dark World of JIRA

Jack Eames

Completely agree. Our team has recently moved from Kanban to Sprint cycles and we're finding it frustrating that you have to go digging around to see subtasks. It's a barrier to productivity and it would be really great if this was adjusted.

Alexander Bøhnsdalen_7zqg74

According to the Scrum guide, during sprint planning the Scrum team decides which will be the sprint goal and batch of user stories will be done for the sprint, this the WHAT. So there we pull the selected user stories from the product backlog (backlog in JIRA) to the “sprint backlog”, then as second part of my the meeting the development team should decide “HOW” they will be done, so it they will be by creating the sub tasks at this point “only”, when they are already selected for the sprint as sprint backlog . During the meeting should be created subtasks if needed at least for the 1sts days of the sprint and be able to give a plan on how they will continue doing that the rest of the subtasks on following days during the sprint.

That is why you do not have subtasks on backlog or product backlog but only shown in Sprint backlog

Sprint backlog:

“The Sprint Backlog is the set of Product Backlog items selected for the Sprint, plus a plan for delivering the product”

... And the part of the plan is the subtasks.

Evan Bovie

Vote here! https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/JSWCLOUD-7992

unknown

If you use the Agile Wallboard Gadget on a dashboard to show the board, the subtasks are visible, with a little header box to show the parent.

2020-02-03 Subtasks on Widget.PNG

It is frustrating that I cannot see them on the project board.

Jan_Denny

@alexander.bohnsdalen

I think most of us are aware of the Scrum Guide, but as the name itself implies - that's just guidance, not a dictum - and it doesn't address the problem on this thread.

It's not an option for my project to just move sub-tasks up a level to story / task, because then our stories / tasks would have to become epics, and our epics would have to become initiatives - and then not only is out backlog way too crowded with too much information, but we've lost the ability to serve our sponsors the information they need at the level they understand. Here are a couple of examples from my Navy project:

Our Initiatives map to sponsor funding line items, so they are very high level. Our Initiatives contain only Epics.
Each of our Epics maps to an item in the customer's schedule. This allows us to develop in Scrum, but give our sponsor (and their leadership) the ability to track our progress in the terms they understand - schedules and funding line items.
Our actual development happens at the story / task level - which is a level that our stakeholders may care about, but our sponsors often don't. But that's fine JQL supports reporting of story / task metadata from the perspective of the issue's parent Epic.

As you should be able to see, Atlassian tools users work in a variety of environments - many of which mandate organization structures that are beyond tool user control, and may not perfectly align with Scrum Guide best practices. But Scrum (and the Atlassian tool suite) can still bring value in these environments IF it's flexible enough to accommodate the things we can't control.

John Chen_wxxvak

Hello there. new to the community, not so new to Jira. I think maybe instead of talking on abstract levels, we can talk about an example, which may help with the debate...

Lets say I run "ABC" car shop (general repairs) by myself. Customer x comes in, needs to do 1) oil change, 2) change timing belt, 3) replace windshield wiper blades, and 4) do a tune up.

I then create a "story" of "customer x" with 4x subtasks. My "ABC Shop" scrum board has many customers, each with their own story and subtasks of things to do.

So, now in a give time period (sprint), I can only do so much. So, I would do subtask #1 from customer X, then subtask #3 from customer Y...etc.

In this situation, what is the best way to configure my project so that I can leverage scrum board to see what I need to do within a given time period?

any suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks.

Nic Brough -Adaptavist-

This does not make sense in a scrum board.

A scrum board represents work that a team needs to do. The backlog of stories are the things you draw into a sprint

Your representation of the customer asking for a service makes sense, as do the sub-task breakdown, but you are thinking of the board slightly wrong. The board is there to tell you what you have said you would do. The customer does not care about the sub-tasks.

The way to see what needs doing is to look at the list of customer services you need to perform. You do NOT do subtask #1 from customer X then #3 from Y. You should be getting everything done for customer X before moving on to Y, because that's what you said you would do. You said you would deal with X first.

It may well be the case that your team has a specialist, so the person who changes timing belts is the only one who does belts, and you don't want them doing anything else because it's a long task and you have to do it for most customers. That's where that specialist should be picking up the next task on the next customer for themselves. But they look to the next customer to check if they have a task for them.

unknown

Dear All,

I do not want to jump into discussion around agile, frameworks, practices and so forth. Does sth make sense or not. It depends really from particular case. Please let's be all of us open minded. If you don't need something don't use it, and please do not criticise people that want to use sth.

I just need a working solution. For me Could Jira which I started to use 2 weeks ago has a lot of missing features that older version of Jira had out of box.

One of such things is to see everywhere easily sub-tasks, not only on boards.
Please iIs there anyone who can point out solution, step by step, how to show subtasks on Scrum Boards or in Epic View? Generally everywhere where it is possible.

Thank you in advance.

Peter Jones_kswyqy

Hi Andrzej,

To support your comment, following a particular framework, or tool for that matter, doesn't make teams agile. It is all about mindset.

Frameworks and tools should support the ability of teams to support business needs AND support evolving behaviours in the teams (which come from having a truly agile mindset).

I also struggle with a lot of JIRA limitations. I appreciate that Atlassian have a massive customer base to support, however, they need to find a way of "embracing change" and specifically, "Responding to Change over Following a plan"

Best
Pete

Sergiy Gorchakov

Atlassian should just give us a 3rd level of hierarchy. Epic->User story->Task. In the same way like we now have for user stories inside epics. In many projects you can't finish a user story in 1 sprint. People are trying to use sub-tasks for this purpose. But of course they are useless if not displayed in a backlog.

As I see this discussion continues for many years. So it looks like we will never get this feature. Sad.

Peter Jones_kswyqy

I disagree with some of your comments....

On the hierarchy topic I suggest you read David Wienberger's "everything is miscellaneous" (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/726004.Everything_Is_Miscellaneous). His view on data structures is excellent and very powerful when put into practice.

On the sub-tasks, in my work environment I am trying to get our PO's out of architectural decomposition / micromanagement. I would like them to focus on the delivery and testing of business stories. In this context I would like to get the tech teams to break the stories down into sub-tasks which can appear on boards but not in the backlog. By blocking the closure of stories with open sub-tasks we will have a solution that works for all parties

Andy Heinzer

Hi everyone,
Over the last 5 years this topic has racked up a lot of views. In an effort to try to better serve users that come across this post, here is an updated answer.

For Jira Server or Data Center users, please see our feature request for this over in JSWSERVER-7992
For Jira Software Cloud users that want to see this in a classic Scrum board, please see our feature request for this in JSWCLOUD-7992
For Jira Cloud users that want this within a next-gen project, please see JSWCLOUD-18393

Cheers,
Andy

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