Setting up jira for using "Feature"

Question

I want to use an issue type structure consisting of:

- Epics composed by features

- Features composed by stories

- Stories composed by tasks

- Tasks composed by subtasks

Jira default issue type scheme doesnt contain "Feature".

How can I setup Jira so that it does and follows the description above?

Frank Jaffa · Answer

Thanks for your answer.
It would be nice though if Jira just supported all from theme to subtask and let the user to decide which structure to use.

Richard Wilson _Jarow Digital_ · Answer

It would be great if Atlassian could give the end customer the choice of this as they do in Jira Align.

Particularly with the end of life of server and the cPrime add in as a way to get around this but this only works in Server / Data Center environments.

It is an old and fundamental request and with Atlassian values of not @#$% the Customer, I can only assume it has not been updated due to large technical debt within the application and will not be updated. Happy to be corrected.

Nic Brough -Adaptavist- · Answer

Currently, the hierarchy in Jira is Epic, Story, Sub-task (although you can have many types of issue at the levels of story and sub-task)

So, whilst you could go off and create features, they'll just behave the same as stories, not as a separate layer in the hierarchy.

Jira's Epics are probably mis-named, as, if you were going to do things this way, they are the layer you describe as "feature" (as does the Scaled Agile Framework, for what it's worth - Jira Align and the Jira Software teams have a task outstanding to work out how to get Epics/Features to named in line)

So, in plain Jira, you're stuck - you could try to do your Epics with issues, but you'd need something to make it look like a container for Jira-Epics.

However, there are apps that can help.  Advanced Roadmaps (nee Portfolio) lets you do the groupings you need.  Jira Align layers itself over the top of Jira, going up from Epic, and Structure can help you if you do try to create your Epics as a layer above Jira-Epics (I wouldn't recommend trying to use Jira Epics as your Epics and using Structure as a layer between Epic and Story, it's a lot easier to just live with Jira calling your Features "Epic" for now.  Last time I did this for someone, they called their Epic layer "Sagas" instead of Epic, so Jira could carry on using Epic)