Moving an in-use Epic to another project loses Greenhopper history/progress

[Curtis S]

Question: Why does moving an Epic from one project to another cause Greenhopper to lose it's history/progress info for that Epic?

Background:

• We have multiple DEV teams within our company (Client, Service, Firmware, etc.)
• Each of our DEV teams (aka 'sprint team') is using Greenhopper to manage their backlog and sprints
• It seems that standard practice is to use one JIRA project for all teams, however, our DEV teams prefer to use separate JIRA projects for each sprint team
• Each of our DEV teams have completed 3-6 sprints, so we have some good history/velocity data
• This answer recommends using an umbrella project so that Epics can span across all JIRA projects: https://answers.atlassian.com/questions/119392/epics-across-projects
• When I tried to move an existing Epic to an umbrella project, Greenhopper lost of of the history/progress and issue mappings for that Epic

Here's what I did:

• One of our projects "ALIB" has an Epic in it called "dCatalog"
• The dCatalog Epic has 46 issues associated with it, 26 are completed, and a total of 434 story points
• In the Agile Board for the "ALIB" project it shows all of the issues assoicated with the "dCatalog" epic and it also shows the completion progress of the "dCatalog" epic
• I moved the "dCatalog" Epic from the "ALIB" project to our Epic umbrella project ("EPICS")
• This then caused the Agile Board for the "ALIB" project to no longer show the "dCatalog" epic
• I then successfully modified the Agile Board configuration for the "ALIB" project to show Epics from the "EPICS" project
• However, now that the "dCatalog" epic is back in the "ALIB" Agile Board, it now shows 0 issues assoicated with it, 0 completed and 0 story points
• When I open up the actual JIRA issue for the "dCatalog" epic it shows the 46 issues assoicated with it, and the status of each of them so that data isn't lost
• However, for some reason Greenhopper doesn't seem to be realizing that there are still 46 issues assoiciated with the "dCatalog" epic

[Alex · Accepted solution]

Hi Curtis,

To reassociate the issues in the ALIB board locate the issues in the list of all issues and drag them back into the Epic (in Plan mode). Unfortunately this is really manual right now. The problem you are describing was filed as a Bug (which you can see here): https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/GHS-7732?jql=project%20%3D%20GHS%20AND%20text%20~%20%22Epic%20move%22

I trust that resolution on the bug will provide a much longer term suitable solution. If you visit the issue in our public Bug Tracker you can comment and provide additional details to the dev team.

Thanks,
Alex

[Curtis S]

Hi Alex,

The GHS-7732 issue says that re-indexing JIRA fixes this issue. Turns out that's correct. Appreciate your help with this!

Thanks,

Curtis

[Alex]

Hi Curtis,

I've tested this out with my own board and I'm getting the same results. I think the issue is that even though the stories associated with the 'dCatalog' EPIC show as associated to the EPIC in the Issue Details the stories are still in the old project while the EPIC is in a new project.

Try bulk moving all your stories into the "EPICS" project and they will show back up in the EPIC details on the sprint board.

If you'd like to keep the stories in the 'ALIB' project (not move them) you can try reassociating them to the 'dCatalog' epic on the 'ALIB' board in plan mode.

I hope this helps.

Thanks,

Alex

[Curtis S]

Hi Alexandra,

We would like to keep the Stories in the ALIB project and the 'dCatalog' Epic in the EPICS-XXX project (only epics in the EPICS-XXX project). How would I reassociate the stories with the 'dCatalog' epic on the 'ALIB' board? I don't see a clear/straightforward way to do this.

BTW, one of the funny things I noticed is that when I click "Issues without epics" on the 'ALIB' board it doesn't show the issues that were unassociated from the 'dCatalog' epic. :-)

Thanks,

Curtis

[Alex]

Hi Curtis,

I suspect that it probably has to do with the issue key change when moving from one project to another. (e.g. your ALIB-XXX epic changed to EPICS-XXX and then changed back to ALIB-XXX).

When you are in plan mode on your 'ALIB' agile board do the stories associated with the 'dCatalog' epic show up as associated to that Epic?

[Curtis S]

Hi Alexandra,

I think this answers your question, but let me know if not:

• On the "ALIB" agile board the 'dCatalog' epic is displayed in the list of Epics
• The JIRA issue for the 'dCatalog' epic still shows the 46 stories linked to the 'dCatalog' epic
• The stories associated with the 'dCatalog' epic are displayed in the "ALIB" board, and the good news is that they are still in the various sprints/backlog that they were in before I moved the 'dCatalog' epic to the EPICS-XXX project
• However, on the "ALIB" agile board, when I expand the 'dCatalog' epic, it says 0 Issues, 0 Completed, 0 Unestimated and 0 Story Points

Definitely looking forward to your advice on this! :)

Thanks,

Curtis