Creation of a sub-epic

[Jacob A. Albrektsen]

Hi 

Is it possible to create an epic in another epic? I need it for a new scope, that is not related to a story, but a child project in this project/epic. Or is it possible to link an epic to another epic? 

[bduncan · Accepted solution]

Epics can be linked but not nested.

Have a look at https://community.atlassian.com/t5/Jira-questions/Re-Can-Epics-have-Sub-Epics/qaq-p/1400382/comment-id/602819#M602819 for some suggestions on how to create a structure around Epics.

[John Funk · Accepted solution]

Hi Jacob,

There's no such thing as a "sub-epic".  If you move to a Premium subscription, you can create a hierarchy with other issue types above or below the Epic. 

[Hannes Obweger - JXL for Jira]

Hi @Jacob A. Albrektsen

as already suggested, sub-epics aren't really supported in Jira's built-in issue hierarchy.

This being said, since issue links can be established between any pair of issues, you can also establish them between two or more epics. E.g., you could create a new issue link type is parent of / is child of, or something of the like.

The downside is that Jira doesn't "recognise" issue links as parent/child relationships, and won't give you any relevant features. However, if you're open to solutions from the Atlassian Marketplace, you'll find a number of apps available that can help here.

E.g., issue-link-based hierarchies are supported in the app that my team and I are working on, JXL for Jira.

JXL is a full-fledged spreadsheet/table view for your issues that allows viewing, inline-editing, sorting, and filtering by all your issue fields, much like you’d do in e.g. Excel or Google Sheets. It also comes with a number of advanced features, including support for configurable issue hierarchies. These issue hierarchies can be based on Jira's built-in parent/child relationships (like Epic/Story), and/or based on issue links of configurable issue link types.

This is how it looks in action:

In the above hierarchy, "sub-epics" WORK-148 and WORK-146 are connected to their "parent-epic" WORK-431 via issue links.

Issue hierarchies can also be combined with JXL's other advanced features, such as issue grouping by any issue field(s), sum-ups, or conditional formatting.

Any questions just let me know,

Best,

Hannes

[W Merc]

That view looks really great, but the problem is having to "buy it" from the marketplace and then implementing at the enterprise.  Some organizations have contractual and procedural reasons that only "out of the box" functionality is available.  So what it sounds like is our Epics aren't easily grouped and become a "flat list" of chaos if we can't add a plug-in.  :-(

[Rahul_RVS]

Hi @Jacob A. Albrektsen 

You can use issue links to link different epics to one another. And if you would like to see them in a tree view, you can try out our app

Issue Hierarchy 

The app shows your issues and its issues in a hierarchy view. You can add your Jira fields to the report as well. The app can help you easily Sum up values (time tracking/story point/custom numeric fields) to see overall progress for your Issues at each parent level, in percentage terms wrt time tracking and story points.

(Disclaimer: I work on RVS, the vendor for this app)

[W Merc]

Not supporting an epic hierarchy is (pardon the pun) not terribly agile, is it?  I do understand that there might be a method to the madness, but large projects start having hundreds of epics in a backlog w/o much to tie them together in a cohesive whole.   Sure it could have been done right in the first place, but we all know the definition of "right" is very subjective and things can get very chaotic very fast before tidal forces keep bad practices going.

[John Funk]

Hi @W Merc  - Welcome to the Atlassian Community. Epic hierarchy is indeed supported. 

[Simon Esposito]

it certainly is NOT

[Schuyler Erle]

Looks like someone didn't read the OP 🙃