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

[Ree Agarwal]

Hi @Rohan Swami 

When are these changes rolling out to those who do not have JIRA premium or enterprise subscription. Any ETA for the same?

[Rodolfo Romero - Adaptavist]

@Rohan Swami unfortunately that will not work for organizations where Company-managed projects are required to manage their project either because they need the configuration level that CM projects provide or they are using Advanced Roadmaps and TM projects are not supported in Advanced Roadmaps at the moment. Maybe these changes will enable TM projects into Advanced Roadmaps?

[Scott Theus]

@Rodolfo Romero - Adaptavist I'm facing the same dilemma, for now I'm likely going have to manage it with training and procedures, not within Jira or Advanced Roadmaps. My issue will be solved when we can have more than one "Epic" issue type  (https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/JSWCLOUD-7203) or if Atlassian add the ability to add hierarchy layers between Epic and Story. 

@Rohan Swami do you know if there is an enhancement request for the added hierarchy layers? If not can I add one?

[Rohan Swami]

@Ree Agarwal Renaming epics will be supported in Free and Standard editions ie. you'll be able to have a 3 level hierarchy (sub-task, story, epic), creating levels above will be continue to be a Premium/Enterprise feature.

@Rodolfo Romero - Adaptavist Yes this is all on the path to supporting TM projects in Advanced Roadmaps, but it will take us quite a while to get there.

@Scott Theus 7203 is the correct feature request to follow along with for your needs.

[Su Wainwright]

We have some projects that are EPIC - STORY and some that are EPIC - FEATURE - STORY.  What is the best way to manage this?

[Rohan Swami]

@Su Wainwright After we introduce the feature discussed in this post my recommendation would be:

• Follow the steps in this post for EPIC-FEATURE-STORY. This will apply to all COmpany-managed projects.
• Use Team-managed projects for projects that require EPIC-STORY.

[Su Wainwright]

@Rohan Swami - sadly that's not going to be a solution for us because a) the company has ruled out Team Managed Projects because we are using Jira as a unifying force for our delivery methods and b) too much is missing from a Team Managed project for the size of projects we have that are EPIC - STORY.   What are the ramifications for projects if they don't use FEATURE and link straight to EPIC we set everything to EPIC - FEATURE - STORY.

We have a new cloud instance that needs to be  EPIC - FEATURE - STORY and we're migrating a whole raft of projects from our server instance that are EPIC - STORY.

[Rohan Swami]

@Su Wainwright if you set up EPIC-FEATURE-STORY you will not be able to link Stories directly to Epics, as parents must be from one level above. Currently we do not support skip-level parenting and it is not in our plans to do so.

We've seen a lot of customers use 'placeholder' Features in this scenario that might be the best option for you here.

[Deepanshu Natani]

@Rohan Swami 

We are currently in the process of introducing "Features" in our issue hierarchy. Ideally, we would like to have the hierarchy as: Initiative-> Epics -> Feature -> Story/ other standard issue types.

As per the details you have shared above, we should be able to rename current Epics and "Features" and then introduce a new issue type "Epic" above the "Features".

I have a few questions related to this:

We can now rename the "Epics" to "Feature". However, the linking still has to be done via the "Epic Link" field. 

When will the "Add parent feature" be available? Is there any approximate timeline for this?

Also, when will the "Epic Name" field be made optional?

And just to confirm, the fields "Epic Name, Epic Link, Epic Status, and Epic Color" will continue to be of this name and they wont change to something like "Feature Name" if we rename epic to "Feature"?

• If this is the case, we will stop using the fields "Epic Name" and "Epic Link" once the epic name is made optional and add parent option is available. This will help us avoid confusion once we rename the epics to feature.

[Rohan Swami]

Hi all!

We now have a beta version of this feature available for you to test out. There are a few limitations in the beta that are important to know before you enable it:

• No support for levels above Epic. ie. You can only have a hierarchy of Subtask-Story-Epic(renamed).
• No support for Automations, custom workflows or marketplace apps.
• Plus more detailed in the Community Group below.

The beta is ideal for your ttest instance or spinning up a new instance of Jira Software to give you the freedom to test everything out first without affecting your teams. To join the beta:

1. Request to join this Beta Community Group https://community.atlassian.com/t5/Epic-Renaming-Beta/gh-p/epic-renaming-beta
2. Review the top/feature post in the Group with the details of the beta.
3. Create a post within the community group to request enabling the beta and we'll sort things out from there.

Kind Regards,
Rohan Swami
Jira Software Product Manager

[Mark Thompson]

Non-premium customers don't have a sandbox since Jira doesn't provide this with their basic service (unlike every other issue tracking system I've administered).  Doing a beta without that ability and losing automation doesn't work on a live system.

This is being rolled out on Oct 31.  I honestly don't know what your PM's are thinking.  The 4th quarter (November) is typically the most productive for most retailers.  Rolling out a potentially disruptive change like this right before peak sales periods probably not the brightest idea.  Would be far less disruptive in January.  Is there a way to not accept this change or hold it off until the new year?

[Scott Theus]

@Rohan Swami 

• No support for levels above Epic. ie. You can only have a hierarchy of Subtask-Story-Epic(renamed).

I'm having a small heart attack...Could you please confirm that this is for the beta only? We currently have levels above Epic and will be adding another. This is functionality that we cannot lose. 

[Mary Boyd]

Just to be clear...

If I have Epics that Parent link to a higher level issue type, will those links remain or will they be broken after this change?

[Colton.Kosicek]

If my current set up is the following:  Can i simply  rename the issuetypes to reflect appropriate SAFe naming without impacting linkage?

Current: 

1. Initiative (Change to Epic)

2. Epic (Change to Feature)

3. Story

Thanks!  Does this need to be done in 2 steps as Epic is already named? or can they run simultaneously?  Trying to understand impacts and OCM conversations required for a large organization to take on issuetype naming convention changes that have been taught for 8+ years.

[Colton.Kosicek]

Can this be released early to sandbox environments for us to test?

[Rohan Swami]

@Mark Thompson The only change shipping on October 31st is the removal of invalid epic links (full details here https://support.atlassian.com/jira-software-cloud/docs/maintain-epic-link-data-for-issues-above-the-epic-level/#Invalid-epic-link-relationships-will-be-deleted-), we've given customers several months to prepare for this to ensure minimal disruption. The remaining changes in this blog will not roll out til later on and we'll be sure to provide sufficient notice.

@Scott Theus That's right, issues above the epic level will be unsupported in the beta only. By the time we're ready to introduce this feature for general access it will support issues above the epic level.

@Mary Boyd If you choose to enrol in the beta, epics with parent-links will not behave correctly. If you don't choose to enrol those links will be unaffected, when we fully roll out this feature they will be unaffected then too.

@Colton.Kosicek @Mark Thompson You can create a new free instance of Jira Software Cloud as a 'sandbox/test' environment to test out these changes. We can enable the beta for that instance only if you wish to test it out. Many customers choose to do this for just their IT-Ops teams to experiment.

@Colton.Kosicek Yes you can rename the issue types without affecting linkage however the epic issue type will not display the renamed value consistently throughout Jira Software, that's what we're going to be able to support once we roll out all the changes described in this post.

[Chris Charensac]

Hi Atlassian team,

We have received a notification regarding that change “We've detected that your Jira site has relationship data that will be lost when we roll out these changes”.

Today, in our configuration, we have other tickets type (21 across >100 projects) which can be linked to an Epic through the Epic link.

Can you please clarify 

• if only stories, tasks, and bugs can be linked to an Epic using the Epic link?
  How to identify the tickets at risk? Is that filter the correct one i.e:  "Epic Link" is not EMPTY and issuetype not in (Story,Task,Bug) ?

Tks,

Chris,

[Rohan Swami]

@Chris Charensac only issues at the Story level can be connected to epics using epic-link. Based on the hierarchy you have shared the following JQL should identify issues at risk:

issuetype in (Initiative, Key Result) and "Epic Link" is not EMPTY

 All the best!

[Mark Thompson]

@Rohan Swami - You got my initial message because I received this message as well:  "We've detected that your Jira site has relationship data that will be lost when we roll out these changes."  but Epic is the highest level in my Hierarchy.  Why would I have an issue?

[Rohan Swami]

@Mark Thompson I've sent you a direct email to follow up on this and I'll do my best to help you out.

[Patricia Francezi]

Hi @Rohan Swami 

In the issue hiearchy we are supposed to choose more issue types to associate to Epic Level, but when trying to choose a parent the only option is the Epic issue type itself. 

Is this screen correct? I mean - should have N options to Epic Level, or we should choose only one?
Also is there a roadmap to be able to create more issue types Epic Types?

Thanks in advanced.

[Rohan Swami]

Hi @Patricia Francezi , if you have added another issue type to the epic level then you can make it a parent to a story by using the parent-link field rather than the epic-link field.

It's not currently in our roadmap to support more issue types at the epic level, please give this an upvote to express your interest https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/JSWCLOUD-7203.

[Ronke]

@Rohan Swami  

I am concerned about the data that was sent in the email that could be lost. Please what kind of data is this, and how can we prevent this not happening?

Kindly help to follow up on this changes journey, few things are unclear.

Thank You.

[Rohan Swami]

@Ronke We have a guide to identifying and fixing impacted epic-links here. Please create a support case or add another comment here if it doesn't give you the information you need.

[Nouman Riaz]

@Rohan Swami How do I edit Epic Summary of an existing epic? I can edit the Epic Name but can't find how to edit Epic Summary. 
Thanks.