What is the difference between Confluence Feature and JIRA Epic

[Anne Sofie Madsen]

Hi all

My team and I work with Confluence and Jira. All our requirements are created in Confluence. In Confluence we call these requiremets 'Features'. From the Features in Confleunce, we can create tasks for Jira which is super smart. When in Jira, the tasks are linked to one big epic. This epic we use to collect all the hours that have been spent on the project. 

So now my issue arises. In confluence, we have the issues/stories nicely split up under each feature. But when the issues are created in Jira they are linked to only ONE big epic. This is not good, so, we need to create more epics. As I understand it, the epics should correspond to the features we have on confluence. So now, what is the difference between the Confluence features and the Jira epics? Do I need the epics now that I have the features in Jira?

Can anyone explain a set up between Confluence and Jira? Maybe link to a nice overview/diagram so I can see the overview?

Thanks in advance.

Sofie, DK.

[Tarun Sapra · Accepted solution]

Hello @Anne Sofie Madsen 

I have discussed this topic in great details in my summit talk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kvkDoe1gCCU

Here are some screenshots from the presentation

[Tarun Sapra]

Basically, don't move away from Epic<->Story relationship in Jira as it's kind of tight coupling. Add another level above Epic (using portfolio ) and have dedicated page hierarchy for large initiatives in confluence which are then broken down into features(epic tickets in Jira) and then into stories.

Lot of SAFe enthusiasts rally around to have Feature<->Story hierarchy in Jira but it's better to stick to Epic-Story has then you can better leverage fixed things like Epic Link, Epic Name, Epic name, various JQL functions from plugins called "issuesInEpic" etc, hence renaming epic to feature or introducing feature in between epic and story can cause lot of confusion to all lot of Jira users.

[Anne Sofie Madsen]

Hi @Tarun Sapra Thanks a lot for commenting on my questions. I would not want to move away from epics, but today my UX and PO colleagues break down their requirements into features in Confluence (I'm not thinking SAFe features here) and from there they create the user stories to Jira. But then again we get the Features in Confluence and also the Epics in Jira which to me seems double up? So t me it seems that there is an overlap between the two...

I like your drawing above but where is Confluence in this? How does your team structure the requirements in Confluence - before they come over to Jira? 

Thanks.
-Sofie

[Tarun Sapra]

Hello @Anne Sofie Madsen 

I was talked about confluence in my talk.

Basically in Confluence you can mirror the Jira hierarchy in terms of content

So you can have a space of initiatives

Under each initiative page have child pages of features.

On each feature page, link it to the Epic Jira ticket in Jira.

And under each feature page have the page listing the progress across all the child stories of the parent epic.

So what I am saying, and what works well for us is to have the 3 levels on confluence as well and features page on confluence can be linked to the Jira Epic Ticket.