Jira Portfolio 2.0

[Jimmy Varghese]

I have already created a plan in Portfolio but how do i link already existing features and user stories to EPICs which are imported in the Plan?

[Walter Buggenhout]

Hi Jimmy,

There's 2 ways to do this (assuming that the plan you created is a Portfolio 2.0 plan):

• either just link the existing features and stories to your JIRA Epics directly. This will reflect automatically into your Portfolio Plan
• or in your Portfolio plan, make sure you scope view is set to display issues at Story level. In the title bar of your issues, on the right hand side there is a cog icon that allows you to show the available colums in the list on your screen. Make sure you make the Epics column visible. From that point onwards, you should be able to select the right epics for each story/feature. When you're done, commit your changes to JIRA and the links will be there too.

[Jimmy Varghese]

The source of Portfolio plan is Project. Existing JIRA tickets dont show up on the portfolio to link. Nor does it allow to link tickets from Jira. My question is simple "How do you link an existing user story to an epic?" The funny thing is when i edit the plan i see the linked tickets under epic but when i confirm it, it doesnt show up under epic. Is there a simple way to do that?

[Walter Buggenhout]

Hi Jimmy,

I'm afraid you lost me there. I think everything is here for you to solve your problem. From what you are describing, my guess is that you are trying to link existing stories to epics from the list of epics in your Portfolio Plan. That is something you cannot do.

If you want to link existing issues (tasks, stories) to epics (which are at a hierarchically higher level in your plan), you should switch your scope view to story level as I described in my first answer. As I explained there, you just select the epic the story belongs to in the Epic column.

In other words, if you are trying to link items together in the hierarchy of your Portfolio 2.0 plan, you start at the lowest level and link upwards, not downwards.

Another big difference with Portfolio 1.0 is that you no longer have to import issues to get them in your plan. Whether you have defined a project, a filter, a board or more of those as a source to your plan, issues added in JIRA will automatically appear in your plan. That's why I also mentioned that linking your existing stories to epics in JIRA instead of Portfolio should also be a valid option to correctly link the two together and have the result automatically show up in your plan.

There is, however, a possibility that certain existing issues do not seem to appear in your plan, despite all this. That's why I also included a screenshot of possible reasons why this may not be the case.

So, with all this material, I would suggest to follow these steps:

1. First of all, check if all your epics and stories are inside your portfolio plan. Do not think about linking them. Just check. Check stories in the Story view of your plan and epics in the epics view.
2. If certain issues or stories are missing, check the list of possible causes I added and find out why they aren't there.
3. If you can't seem to figure out how to perform step 1 or 2, take some time to look at the demo videos here to get a better understanding.
4. If your epics and stories are in your plan, link them through either of the described methods:
   1. go to the list of stories, make sure you have the epics column visible and select the correct epic next to each story. When you're done, commit your changes to JIRA Software.
   2. or forget about the plan and link your existing stories to existing epics in JIRA Software. When you're done, refresh your Portfolio plan and linking should be ok.
5. If you still don't get there, there might be something wrong. In that case, gather some screenshots and log an issue with Atlassian support.

[Jimmy Varghese]

The source of my tickets are project, neither can i link a ticket nor existing linked user story gets attached to the epic

[Jimmy Varghese]

Hello Walter, what i meant is once i have my Epic/User story in JIRA a ticket which is already created but it doesnt show up on Portfolio, how do i do that. In 1.0 i could simpy addup the tickets to the user story. But 2.0 doesnt allow me to do that, nor does it allow to easily add a user story to an epic. I have put a pic for your referenceNPI.jpg

[Walter Buggenhout]

Hey Jimmy,

What is the source of your Portfolio 2.0 plan? Is it a Project, a Board or a Filter? If your existing JIRA issues are part of the source of your Portfolio plan, there is nothing you should do specifically in order to get them in your plan apart maybe from refreshing your screen.

[Walter Buggenhout]

Some things you might look at too, if you can't immediately relate to the source of your Plan:

Screen Shot 2016-11-07 at 14.38.44.png

[Walter Buggenhout]

Ok.

If you switch your scope to Epic view like this:

Screen Shot 2016-11-07 at 15.31.34.png

Do you see the indication of issues without parent epic at the bottom of your Epic list?

Screen Shot 2016-11-07 at 15.31.52.png

And while you are checking that ... are all your epics from your project visible in that same list?