Can someone explain why Epic Status exists?

Question

I'm reintroducing myself to Jira after initially working with it about 7 years ago. One of the new features I'm struggling to understand is Epic Status vs Epic Issue/Workflow Status. I was hoping someone could explain the Atlassian rationale for creating Epic Status. What does it drive, why does it exists, why wouldnt using the workflow status and or resolution have worked?

Merrit Hall · Answer

Thanks for the quick turn around! I guess I want the long answer if you don't mind.

My question is why would having multiple issues with different workflows matter?

Possibly, was it, that to use the board you would have had to have done a mapping exercise for every issue type's associated workflow's statuses to the board's columns? I'm asking because you still have to do that currently, so what did it solve, if this was the actual reason?

Also I did create an Epic workflow to automatically change the Epic Status with post functions.

My question is more trying to understand the rationale, so I can design my instance well.

Lastly, I am assuming the Epic Status interacts with reports the same way as Resolution?

Thanks again,

Merrit

Daniel Eads · Answer

Hi Merrit, welcome to Community!

The shortest answer is "because issues in epics can be from multiple projects". This might mean the issues contained in the epic have different workflows and statuses.

This previous discussion thread answers your questions pretty well and in a good amount of depth - have a peek!

Cheers,
Daniel