Upcoming - Rename ‘epics’ in your company-managed projects

[Rohan Swami]

@Bryan Darr this blog covers our plans for Epic fields in more detail: https://community.atlassian.com/t5/Jira-Software-articles/Upcoming-changes-to-epic-fields-in-company-managed-projects/ba-p/1997562?utm_campaign=&utm_content=post&utm_medium=email&utm_source=atlcomm#M655

TLDR: We will switch to using the Issue Status field in Jira experiences such as the Epic panel on the left of backlogs, but the Epic Status field will continue to exist so that no customer data is lost and customers can continue using the field as needed.

[Dror Fries]

With regards to the "Epic Link' deprecation message that we need to replace with "Parent".

Are we going to loose the nice visual coloring of Epic Link ?
All Parent looks the same (visually, just with text difference) 

This is sad. Any way to mitigate this to allow background color around a "Parent" when appears on filters, dashboards etc.?

thanks

[Samar Ahmed]

i would like to confirm on something , so from my understanding that change will affect me only  in case i change the configurations on Issues hierarchy ? but if i don't need that , it will be the same and i can use the epic link as it is without affecting me ?

[Katie Kirkham]

This will cause confusion when looking at Dashboards where multiple epics are used, as the colour view of the Epics is now gone. 

[David Loszewski]

Can I change an issue type from Base to Epic? 

[Alessandro Cimino]

Hi @Rohan Swami , 

Are the API also impacted by this change? For example the Json response.

Thanks, 

Alessandro Cimino

[Leigh-Ann Barnard]

@Rohan Swami Have these changes been rolled out yet? I have followed the steps to change "Epic" to "Feature", including renaming the issue type, however it does not change anything, nor in the panel. It still says "Epic".

[paul.mcwilliams]

I am trying to filter by epic and am unable to do so. Jira is telling me I need to update to Parent and is directing me to this page. I do not have access to admin settings, but need to be able to filter my work by Epic in the traditional way. Can somebody please help me with this?

[Alexis]

Moving forward, what would be the best way to query for all issues where the Parent is NOT an Epic?

Currently I use the query ""Epic Link" is EMPTY". Using the Parent field will filter out Issues that have any parent, not just epic parents.

[Dariusz Welzandt]

Hi, I have read this whole thread, but I still don't know the answer to the question:

•  if I don't make any changes to the epic level configuration:
  • will I still be able to use the epic link field on boards and dashboards and filters shared with other employees?
  • should I make changes to the Issue screens?
• if the above-mentioned changes are required, is there any date after which the current configuration will stop working properly?

Regards
Darek

[Deleted user]

I love being able to create issue types above Epics. However, i want to manage them the same way I manage Epics and Stories: prioritize my backlog and plan my sprints, perhaps with longer duration. Otherwise, what is the point?

Do you have plans to re-use Epic issue type across entire hierarchy? 

[Tijs Tijert]

You say that after this update one can create custom Epics. Why didn't you also make it possible to create custom subtasks?

We've been waiting for that also for a very long time!
[JSWCLOUD-20901] Allow the creation of Multiple Sub-task issue types in Team Managed projects - Create and track feature requests for Atlassian products.
It already has over 500 votes.

Any news on that?

[Deleted user]

@Rohan Swami Hi, the renaming of the Epic to something like "Feature" and this showing renamed on the existing Epic Panel has this been released?, Have Followed the steps and has not been recognised. 

Many Thanks 

Adrian 

[Rohan Swami]

Hi all, thanks for your feedback.

There were a lot of questions here about epic-link behaviour, so we've created a dedicated post to answer your questions in more detail over here https://support.atlassian.com/jira-software-cloud/docs/upcoming-changes-epic-link-replaced-with-parent/

@Leigh-Ann Barnard please note that these changes haven't rolled out yet.

@David Loszewski For now we only support a single issue type at the Epic level, so you are unable to move an issue type from the base level to the epic level.

Hope this helps,
Rohan Swami
Jira Software Product Manager

[Scott Clasen]

@Rohan Swami , has anyone else reported problems with creating hierarchies above Epic? We are on the Premium plan and followed all the instructions to access the Issue Type Hierarchy setting and we see Epic at level #1. When we create a new level for initiatives, it automatically becomes level #2, under epics. 

The screenshot you included in this article of the Issue Hierarchy screen does not show Epic at level #1, there is no level set.

Why do I see Epic set to level #1?

[Rohan Swami]

@Scott Clasen When you create a new level it should immediately go to the top, in the screenshot above it would be called Level #2. Then add the issue type Initiative to your newly created level.

[Scott Clasen]

@Rohan Swami yes I had done that but I didn't think that solved the problem. I did it again this morning and then investigated and saw I now have the Parent Link option in my Epics and can make it the child issue of my initiative. Now, the hierarchy is properly displaying on my Plan. Thanks!

[Scott Theus]

@Rohan Swami you mentioned earlier that "For now, we will continue to support only a single issue type at the traditional Epic level of the hierarchy, but you'll be able to rename that issue type to your choice of term."

Is there a timeline for allowing multiple "Epic" issue types? Our hierarchy is Initiative, Epic, Feature, Story, Subtask. My division is not the only group that uses Epic, so renaming it to Feature and having new Base issue types for Initiative and Epic above the renamed Feature(Epic) is not an option. 

I need a layer between Epic and Story; I'd prefer to create a parent/child relationship between two epics, but failing that a Base issue type with a as a child to the Epic and as a parent to the Story will fit my need. 

Thanks!

-Scott

[Rohan Swami]

@Scott Theus Supporting multiple issue types at the Epic level isn't in our plans at the moment. Can I please that you add a vote to this public ticket and add yourself as a watcher so that you'll get updates? https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/JSWCLOUD-7203

[Ree Agarwal]

Hi @Rohan Swami 

Question: Will there be a possibility to have the following issue hierarchy with the changes rolling in:

Epic -> story -> Tasks -> Sub tasks?

Currently we use epics to define the functionality/feature/integration we want to deliver, Stories or tasks as what needs to be done for the functionality like FSD, configuration, testing, meetings etc.. and sub-tasks form the actual work within the story/task which we estimate as those are our smallest pieces of work that we can complete in the sprint. 

But currently we can't add a sub-task in the sprint without adding a parent and there might be scenarios where we are not completing all the sub-tasks of the parent in the sprint as there are too many.

So a provision of adding a third level like task would help us with this issue with the ability to add it in the sprint without adding the parent story. 

So would that be possible with the new changes coming in or is on the roadmap for future enhancements?

Thanks

[Mark Thompson]

Just so everyone understands but someone from Atlassian can indicate if these are incorrect statements.

1.  Automation rules using epic links will fail when this change rolls out

2. All personal queries that use epic links will need to be updated

3. Any external reference to an epic name that doesn't match the epic summary will need to be updated because epic names will be changed to match the epic summary.

4. Parent links are unavailable in the standard product so there is no real way to prepare for this before roll out.

It will be kind of a major impact to companies that rely heavily on epic links.  My suggestion so you don't totally disrupt a large portion of your customers is to allow parent links in the standard product.  This way admins can move everyone over to using parent links before the change or make this something that can be done in Jira Labs so we can fix the problems.  The way you are doing this is not customer friendly.  At least with new issue view I was able to switch back and forth to fix everything and move everyone over when I was done.  I was the only one who felt that pain.  On this change the pain will be felt by every team that extensively uses epic links,

[Rohan Swami]

@Ree Agarwal when these changes roll out you'll be able to have that hierarchy in place, you'll be able to rename Epic to Story, then create a new level above called Epic. But the constraint of needing to add a parent to the Sprint will not be resolved unfortunately, and it's not on our roadmap to address this.

@Mark Thompson

1. Automation rules using epic links will be automatically migrated to use parent instead. Where you had an epic link value we'll copy that across to parent and update the automation to point to parent.

2. We'll do the same with queries using epic link. For a grace period you'll be able to use epic-link and parent interchangeably and we'll be keeping the fields in sync for you. Then we'll restrict you to using parent only.

The exception to the above is if your queries are off-Atlassian. We can't go into your 3rd party tool eg. Excel and update them for you. 

3. We won't touch your Epic Summaries, the field will continue to exist and you can continue putting information there. Jira experiences (such as the one below) will use Issue Summary instead. 

4. As per the examples in 1. and 2. we're migrating everything from epic-link over to parent with similar functionality, so I don't believe there are any concerns.

If there's anything I've missed please let me know!

[Mark Thompson]

@Rohan Swami - Thank you!  That does address my concerns.  

[Rodolfo Romero - Adaptavist]

Some organizations would like to be able to use "Epic" in 2 different ways. Some Jira projects will want to keep the name Epic and others would like to name it Feature. Would this use case be supported after the rollout?

[Rohan Swami]

@Rodolfo Romero - Adaptavist The use case we're implementing would result in Epic being renamed in all company-managed projects. As a workaround, you could have all the company-managed projects use Feature, and those teams who want to use Epic can use Team-managed projects.