How do we link a task to a story

[John Houser]

Newbie here. 

I piloting Jira before adopting for a wider team, and have most of Jira figured out.

I have searched, and I have been unsuccessful finding out exactly what setting I need to change in order to link a TASK to a STORY.

I am looking to do this type of hierarchy:

And when I click on the three dots on the TASK and select Add Parent

I only get the option to add an Epic parent, not a Story parent.

Any help would be appreciated!  Thanks!

[Kristján Geir Mathiesen · Accepted solution]

Hi @John Houser  and welcome to the Community!

On the Story, you click on Link Issue and enter the issue key of the Task and choose the type of linkage you want it to be (Blocks, Relates to, ...). Or you can do the same on the Task but enter the Story key there.

HTH,
KGM

[John Houser]

@Kristján Geir Mathiesen  - Thank you!

Yes, this is what we were looking for!

Thank you again!

[Michael Figueras]

Thank you for this. I have been on different JIRA courses and this was not mentioned. Appreciate the help. 

[Rishabh Jain]

@Kristján Geir Mathiesen Can I do the related to activity in bulk for multiple tasks in one go?

[Kristján Geir Mathiesen]

Hi @Rishabh Jain

Do you mean can you bulk edit many issues with link issue (and choosing the "related to" link)? I don't think you can.

Best,
KGM

[Rishabh Jain]

Hi @Kristján Geir Mathiesen 

Yes, thats what I want to do.

[Bill Sheboy]

Hi @John Houser -- Welcome to the Atlassian Community!

Based upon your hierarchy example image, you may instead want to use the Jira issue types:

• Epic
  • Story
    • Sub-task

Tasks in Jira are at the same level as Story and Bug (defect), and so can only be connected with links, as @Kristján Geir Mathiesen describes.  Sub-tasks are child items of a Story, Task, or Bug.

Kind regards,
Bill

[John Houser]

Thank you @Bill Sheboy  I was using that.  We were hoping to have the tasks visible on the board and move across the board during the sprint.

[Rose Alcolea]

Hi John, 

You can do that by configuring your board so it shows sub-tasks. In your Board Configuration, go to Card Layout and under Backlog choose "Sub-Tasks" and add it.

Hope this helps!

[Philip Couling]

I'd have two concerns with this approach:

1. The inevitable cognitive dissonance in placing "subtasks" under "stories" and not "subtasks" under "tasks" as any native english speaker would naturally understand these concepts.
2. Effectively removing the availability of subtasks for their intended purpose: breaking up large tasks.

[Michael Aglas]

But... You can have sub-tasks for any issuetype, can't you? Like you could breakdown a Bug, Feature, whatever into sub-tasks. It just means you need several sub steps in order to fulfill the Issue. Also you can have different type of sub-tasks, like analysis, review, implementation, documentation and so on. And you can't even restrict what subtask type belongs to what standard issuetype... so why needing it to be restrictive?

[Gary Walvin]

This doesn't make any sense.

• I have a story.
• I have tasks to be done to fulfill it.
• I have subtasks that break down what needs to be done to fulfill the tasks.

Tasks and Stories really shouldn't live at the same level.

[Natalie Franklin]

I agree!  It makes it confusing to structure - 

[Ryan Heath]

https://community.atlassian.com/t5/Jira-articles/Difference-and-use-cases-of-Jira-issue-types-Epic-vs-Story-vs/ba-p/1655157

Suggests that Tasks and Stories are NOT on the same level as some suggested

[Ryan Heath]

For the record, lots of other official posts suggest they ARE, so who knows!

[Brian Nelson]

This may be new functionality since the previous replies above, but you can do what was requested these days if you don't mind using the SubTask type:

Open the Task and click the little icon beside the task name to change issue type.

There you can select to convert it to a Sub-Task. From there you will be prompted which Parent object to link it to, and you can then enter the Story id to link it to.

Yes this will change a Task to a Sub-Task. The hirearchy restrictions mentioned by Bill Sheboy still seem to be present.