How to add EPIC field to Create Issue?

[Cindy Tan]

Trying to add Epic Field to the Create Issue screen but could not find the EPIC field to be add in configuration. 

Current workaround is add the EPIC after Story/issue created, which sometime we may forgot to add EPIC after story/issue created.

[Rohan Swami]

Hi folks, Jira Product Manager here.

We'll be supporting selecting an epic/parent when creating an issue for next-gen projects in the coming months. I appreciate this is a long time coming. While I can't offer a more precise ship date at the moment as we have a lot of technical challenges to work through, rest assured it's on the way.

[Jess Morris]

Any update on the timing of this? 

[Kate Lavrinenko]

It really brings a lot of pain to not be able to add Epic right after creating a story or task. I hope this possibility will be back soon.

[Cynthia Baute]

+1 looking for this functionality.

[Rebecca Friess]

+1 Also looking to add the ability to add epic on create issue. There is a version of Jira that allows for this already, but in the version the company I'm at now has, it's not available. Adding Epic at the top is very inconvenient because it won't let you type the start of the epic name, you have to view all epics to find it. :(

[Chris Smith]

+1(0000)

It seems very odd to me that you have a Roadmap feature in which Epics play the most critical role, and yet there is no way to add an epic to a story being created sans by clicking the + next to the epic name in Roadmap view.

This feels like an oversight and not a small one.

Please prioritise this. 

[Thomas Rondahl]

@Rohan SwamiIs there any update on this feature?

[Darryl Rubarth]

This is a much-needed feature.  I hope it's implemented soon.  We use epics a lot, so this is a pain point.

[Luis Campos]

This is _still_ a much-needed feature. 

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

It's not ideal, but you can still add the epic-link field to your issues.

[Kevin Morris]

Lol 7 months they can't add a field.

[ROMAN SIMANOVICH]

It has been 8 months since your last post. Do you have any updates on when we can expect this functionality?

[Jon Aldinger]

@Rohan Swami Can you please provide an update? I've been a Jira user for years. My new company is using Monday.com and I recommended we switch to Jira. I just spent 30 minutes trying to figure out how to assign an Epic to a story on creation (a basic and fundamental feature of Jira) and landed on this thread. 8 months later and still nothing? This is really not helping sell the idea of our company switching back to Jira. 

At this point do you recommend using Company-Managed Projects instead of Team-Managed Projects if we want to use Epics as part of our workflow?

[ROMAN SIMANOVICH]

After posting I found where to add the epic. It is a little different from a company managed project where you can have the epic be a field in the issue. Once you open an issue you can select Add Epic in the top left corner.

[Jon Aldinger]

Thanks @ROMAN SIMANOVICH that is helpful and I hadn't noticed that. I also just discovered a [ + Epic ] button that renders when you hover over a row in the backlog, which is nice.

The problem still remains though - assigning a story to an epic remains a multi-step process which breaks your flow. Depending on where you create the story, it may not even be visible on the page you are viewing once created. So then you have to click "View Issue" in the toast popup banner to navigate to the issue detail page, and then click another button to assign the epic. And if you are trying to create a bunch of stories in a row with the "Create another issue" checkbox in the create modal, you can't assign all of those stories to epics as you go, so you've just created a bunch of wasteful follow-up work. 

[Daniel Capizzi]

Hi everyone - this is Daniel from the Jira engineering team. I wanted to provide an update on this feature and let you all know that it will be delivered as part of the Flexible Naming of Epics project. The public roadmap for this project is kept up to date with our expected timeline, currently Q4 2023.

We understand how frustrating the delay is. This project has been a significant technical challenge and our highest priority is ensuring we ship a stable and non-buggy experience. As Rohan mentioned we appreciate this is a long time coming and the team here is working hard to make sure these features are shipped as soon as possible!

[Kevin Morris]

My bet is Q2 2024.

[Jon Aldinger]

While that's still quite a ways out, I do appreciate you taking the time to provide an update @Daniel Capizzi . Thank you for the information. And hey, we've all been there, where simple-seeming things are hard :) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y8OnoxKotPQ

[Balint Farkas]

Hey, it's just adding a button, what could possibly be hard about it? :))) Thanks for posting this update, looking forward to the feature!

[Adam Kjems]

@Kevin Morris I hope you're right. 

[Kevin Morris]

@Adam Kjems me too but we're looking at alternatives because it's a joke that they can't update this tool when there are startups developing better functioning and customizable software in a year vs. multi-year small incremental features. Atlassian really wants you to pay for extensions.

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

You have been able to put "Epic Link" on the create screen for quite a while, but it was not the best of interfaces.

You can now use the Parent field to do it.

[Adam Kjems]

@Nic Brough -Adaptavist- 

I see the parent field on some of my projects (screenshot attached), but not my main project (Show Fields screenshot). is there somewhere to enable it? 

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

What do you see when you click on the parent selection list?

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

Oh, sorry, I only answered the second part of your question.

If you do not have the parent field on the creation screen, then it is likely that the project / issue-type has not been configured to include it.  Have a look at the screens in use for the project.

[Adam Kjems]

@Nic Brough -Adaptavist- Thanks I found it. The Parent field needed to be added to the issue type under Project Settings/Issue Types

[Mayur Jadhav]

Hi @Cindy Tan

Welcome to the Atlassian Community!!!

I assume you mean that you can't add an Epic Link field on new tickets?

If this is the case, you need to:

1. Have admin access to the project and/or system
2. Add the Epic Link field to the create screen of the issue type in question in your project

More info here:  https://confluence.atlassian.com/adminjiracloud/defining-a-screen-776636475.html

Thanks,

Mayur

[Cindy Tan]

Hi @Mayur Jadhav,

Thanks so much for your prompt reply.
However, I could not field the EPIC field in my field selection on the right panel and there is no option for me to find the hidden field. My screen as below. Thank you

[Mayur Jadhav]

Hi @Cindy Tan 

That's you need to add epic link field to issue create/view/edit screen.

Here is the link which can help you to understand

https://support.atlassian.com/jira-software-cloud/docs/configure-field-layout-in-the-issue-view/

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

Just to be clear - there is no "EPIC field" in Jira, it doesn't mean anything to us when you say that.

Mayur has made the same assumption I would - that you mean the "Epic Link" which enables you to put an issue into an Epic.

[Cindy Tan]

Hi @Nic Brough -Adaptavist- ,

What do you mean by there is no epic field in JIRA? Then could you tell me why there is an "Add epic" feature available after a story being created as below image?

I am trying to say that there is no epic field available in Create Issue pop up window when create a new story, bug or task.

Steps:

Click on Create button > Create Issue window pop up > there is no Epic Field in the Create Issue window which could allow us to insert or select the available epic.

Currently, as a workaround I can only add Epic link using the "Add epic" after the story created, which causes some of our user forget to add in after story created. 

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

The "add epic" is a function, not a field.

"there is no epic field available in Create Issue pop up window" - yep, it's not available because there is no epic field.

[carsonlmh]

I think @Nic Brough -Adaptavist- means you need to be more specific about what field of an epic you'd like to add to an issue (name, link, status?). Hence, "add epic" is ambiguous because you want to add an attribute of an epic as a field (usually name of the epic the issue belongs to).

I don't know why he/she had to be so indirect.

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

Hmm, my last answer vanished, but it was about the screenshot and explaining something else.

No, I was pointing out that there is no Epic field in Jira, and that frames the answers already given.  That's not indirect.

The "add epic" in the question is not an Epic field, it is a function to create and/or link to an Epic.

Epic-link is however a field, one that you can put on the create screen, to enable the issue to be linked to an Epic as it is created.

But, (and this is the bit that went missing) you can only add Epic-link to screens in projects that support Epics via Epic-links.  Team-managed projects do not do it that way.  And a team-managed project is what we're seeing in Cindy's screenshot.

[sandip]

@Nic Brough -Adaptavist- Could you explain the rationale behind why Team-managed projects do not allow linking Epics to Issues as they are created? This is a fairly standard use-case is Agile development where Issues are created in the middle of a Sprint and need to be assigned to an Epic.

Is there another way to achieve the same result in JIRA?

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

The rationale is not really a rationale, just an explanation - Atlassian just haven't got to it yet.  Team-managed projects are relatively new, and they're trying to build them from the ground up.  "Epic link during create" has not made it to the top of the to-do list yet.

The way to do it is "use a company-managed project" - these are more functional and suitable for shared enterprises, unlike team-managed projects.

[Stephen Carter]

I agree with the thread in that as a PO that has created a number of high level EPICs, I then want to go and create new Story tickets and link them to the EPIC when creating them, not afterwards. I am sure that i have seen this possibility exist in previous versions on on-prem install of Jira that I have used

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

Er, as we said before, you can.  You put the epic-link field on the create screen.  (Not yet possible in team-managed projects)

[Stephen Carter]

I appear to be in team managed project as well, so going through the same level of pain as @Cindy Tan 

[Gayathri Rajan]

Facing the same issue with Team managed project. Having to create the user story or task first from a structure and then going back to id to add the Epic. Not at all user friendly

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

Yep, team-managed projects aren't really ready for serious use yet.

[sandip]

@Nic Brough -Adaptavist-  A lot of Atlassian customers seem to be requiring this feature. Is there a product manager we can loop in to provide inputs here? 

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

Why?  There's a request for team-managed projects to have Epic Link fields already.

[sandip]

Ok, let me explain how serious this is for us:

I estimate my developers are losing about 0.25 hrs/week due to the lack of this "feature". That's 1 hour or 100$ a month. For a team of 50 devs, that's a loss of 60k/year.  Its been 6 months since this "feature" request and I've yet to see any urgency or indication of when it would be made available. 

Now, I understand Atlassian needs to prioritise features and this is the job of the product manager. Hence, my request.

It is 2022 and the B2B SaaS landscape is changing far more rapidly than 10 years ago. I'd be careful of treating customer requests with levity. We're providing well-intentioned feedback with the aim of improving the product..

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

Ok, so don't use team-managed projects.  Company managed projects have supported the Epic link field on issue  create for years.

Edit - I am sorry, the last couple of comments were probably too short and very terse and did not do a good job of explaining the earlier conversation.

As discussed at length, short version is:

• Where is the Epic field?
• There is no Epic field, you link to Epics with the Epic link field
• That field is not yet ready for Team Managed projects

I was then trying to (and failing miserably) clarify that it is on the list for Atlassian to add to team-managed projects, but that is a very long list, and Atlassian do not look here for discussions about the items on it, they look at Jira.atlassian.com

In the near term, the simple fix for you is to move to using Company Managed projects, because they do have Epic Links

[Chad Hammer]

@Nic Brough -Adaptavist- jumping on the bandwagon here to say I, unfortunately, am also on a team managed project. Is there a way to convert my existing project setup (without having to recreate everything from scratch) to a company managed project so that I can gain access to the epic link field on the create a new {task} screen?

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

I'm afraid you need to create a company-managed project, then move all your issues into it.

[Balint Farkas]

Folks, come on. This is such a basic feature it's incomprehensible that it's missing.

The tickets I create aren't fully complete until they have an epic linked, and while I can do everything from the create screen, I can't link an epic there. So I have to create the ticket, wait for the "View Issue" button to pop up, click that, wait for the heavy Javascript-laden window of the ticket I just created pop up AGAIN, hit the tiny little click target in the upper left corner to add an epic, click View All Epics (because the suggestion list usually fails to contain the epic I need - it doesn't seem to take either frequency of usage or date of last usage into account), select the epic, then FINALLY close the ticket.

This is 15-20 seconds of concentration-shredding busywork for every single ticket I create. Multiply it by number of tickets per sprint, number of sprints per year, and number of teams that use team-managed projects, and you're wasting probably person-months' worth of your customers' time every year because you can't find about half a day to implement a trivial and highly requested UI feature.

Please kindly do get around to doing this!

[sandip]

I've reached out to the senior product manager of JIRA. waiting for his feedback.

If this fails, it would be not a bad idea to write a medium post lol 

[Steve Moreno]

I concur we would really like to specify the Epic during the Issue creation!

[sandip]

@Jason Wong Can you help here? We've been trying to raise attention to this issue for a while now. Thanks!

[Mayur Jadhav]

Thanks @sandip for reaching out to Atlassian. This is really required feature. Awaiting for this.

[Steve Gonzales]

As others have mentioned, it is simply irrational that this is not a standard feature on ALL Create Issue forms. I thought Jira was supposed to be object oriented? If so, you should be able to just add the Epic Link function (or whatever the Atlassian people were arguing about calling it) to form with a few lines of code. 

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

I'm with you on that.  It's one of the reasons I say that team-managed projects are not ready for "the enterprise" or even just cross-project working.  They're self-contained and linking to Epics outside them is pretty much pointless.

Company-managed projects have it right - an Epic spans every piece of work it needs to, irrespective of project.  But TMPs don't do that, so we can't use them for anything other than "side projects that no one else really needs to know about".

>I thought Jira was supposed to be object oriented?

It is. 

The object in a TMP is the team, who are insular and don't need to care outside their project.  Epics don't matter to isolated teams.

The object in a CMP is the Epic which covers some stuff the team needs to get done to enable other teams to do stuff that enables getting to the end goal.

>If so, you should be able to just add the Epic Link function

Yep, we should.  But that does mean TMPs need to work towards cross-team collaboration.  Which is absolutely not what they are currently built for.

[Steve Gonzales]

Nic, it is likely that the person setting up our project didn't even know the difference between CMP and TMP. Either way, it seems unrealistic that a TMP would not need Epics, and ours does have them...it's just that we can't assign an Epic to a story when it is created. An Epic is an attribute of a team, so the way Epics are implemented in Jira, they are either not object oriented or Atlassian doesn't really care about its customer base. Yet another totally frustrating feature. I've used many other project tracking tools that are far simpler and superior to the bloated monstrosity that Jira has become...

[Balint Farkas]

> The object in a TMP is the team, who are insular and don't need to care outside their project. Epics don't matter to isolated teams.

This is... baffling. Is it really your view that teams are "insular" and "don't need to care" about their environment? To express my frustration in the mildest possible terms, this isn't a productive model of reality.

> It's one of the reasons I say that team-managed projects are not ready for "the enterprise" or even just cross-project working.

Then please advertise this fact unambiguously and up-front on the board creation UI. "Hey, this thing is only useful if you're an isolated silo." That would be perfectly fine.

But now I'm stuck because there was no upfront warning, I didn't think of googling "are team-managed projects actually usable for teams" because, you know, I kinda expect basic stuff in released for-profit software to just work, and there's no migration path except moving all tickets to a new board and breaking a hundred issue links in all sorts of tools.

This whole mess just leaves a bitter aftertaste.

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

> Is it really your view that teams are "insular" and "don't need to care"

No, that's the view of Team Managed Projects - they are built to be insular and not have anything in common with other projects.

>Then please advertise this fact unambiguously and up-front on the board creation UI. 

It's not up to me, I'm not an Atlassian.

I think you've missed the point I made earlier - "team-managed projects are not ready for "the enterprise" or even just cross-project working."

[Jason Wong]

@sandip sorry for the delay in getting back to you - I'll for sure bring the right team here at Atlassian to discuss this with you.

For now, what I can say is (as already noted in some of the discussion above by @Nic Brough -Adaptavist- ):

• EPICs are not a custom field, and so in the config screenshots above there isn't a way to add it in that way.
• There is a difference between the way EPICs work in Company vs Team managed projects.
  • Company projects use what has been referred to as Epic links. Along with sub-tasks this has driven a hierarchy of EPIC-ISSUE-SUBTASK for a number of years, (as far back as Jira Agile users will remember and may have used). The issue types for EPIC and Subtask are special and cannot be renamed.
  • With Team managed projects, issue hierarchy has changed from that kind of hard coded EPIC-ISSUE-SUBTASK structure, to issues pointing to parent and child. This design does improve future potential as it introduces the possibility for multiple & flexible levels of hierarchy (not jus 3) as they are then all issue types. Also, you'll notice that, if needed you can now change the name of EPICs to suit your own terminology. 
• There is some discussion about bringing these together so that there's greater consistency, but I'll need the team I'm finding for you to give you the info on what we're doing going forward as I'm now managing a different roadmap (I'm now on the Atlassian Cloud Migrations team - for which are well aware of this as we get questions about it for customers migrating from Server or Data Centre to Cloud).

Hope that helps for now. If you have further questions on the above let me know. Otherwise, stand by for more info!

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

@Jason Wong - have you mixed up Company and Team managed projects here?

Company-managed projects have a hierarchy of

• Epic 
• Issue (you can have many types, named differently)
• Sub-task (you can have many types, named differently)

Team-managed projects have a hierarchy of 

• Epic 
• Issue (you can have many types, named differently)
• Sub-task 

Plus the added complexity that you can have many Epic types for Company-managed ones if you have Advanced Roadmaps.

All of them can be renamed, but it can look a little odd when you rename Epics or team-managed sub-tasks because a lot of the UI continues to talk about Epic and sub-task.

[Jason Wong]

@Nic Brough -Adaptavist- 

In terms of how Epics and issue hierarchy functions, what I posted above still stands:

• The Company managed Epics are a "special" type of issue. You can only have an epic link in an issue that points to this special Epic type, and so there isn't flexibility on say creating a different kind of Epic level issue type. Granted the advanced roadmaps example you point out does blur this distinction, but from a pure JSW configuration perspective company managed projects don't offer issue hierarchy flexibly in the backend.
• On the other hand, Team managed treat all issues in the hierarchy as the same kind of issue object in configuration. The hierarchy is set differently, using parent/child fields, no longer a specific Epic link. It may feel that the "UI continues to talk about epic and subtasks" but this is likely to be due to the default names epic-issue-subtask being the same. 

Granted, what I'm explaining is more about what and why things are changing under the bonnet (what's happening in the backend) in terms of how issue hierarchy will function. - I mentioned above how we are working towards greater consistency, here's a link with more info on how we're doing that in the backend:  https://community.developer.atlassian.com/t/deprecation-of-the-epic-link-parent-link-and-other-related-fields-in-rest-apis-and-webhooks/54048

To explain how this is presented in the UI & features now and going forward, best to reach out to @Rohan Swami. He has also responded above about what's requested in this thread and the good news is that it is coming!

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

Thanks Jason! 

That makes a lot of sense - I think I was struggling with how the front-end stuff looks different to the back end.  

[sandip]

@Jason Wong Thanks for your explanation. I get the difference between how Company-managed and Team-managed projects treat Epic - Issue linkages.

However, this thread is about a seemingly simple feature request: Adding the Epic to the Issue during creation.

The reasoning / justification for this has been provided by several customers in this thread, so I won't repeat that :)

I understand that @Rohan Swami has said that this feature is coming in the next few months. Is there a planned date for the release?

Thanks.

[Zhenyu Wei]

It is now in 2023 and I still don't see this is available (Epic Link field, or sth similar, in Team-managed project) so I leave a comment here to ask if there is any follow-up. I believe there are many customers out there like me expecting this functionality. Thanks.

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

See @Rohan Swami 's answer

[Mathias Hädrich]

Still no update? this is such a basic functionality ;(

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

See Rohan's answer, it's not changed yet.

[tpetit]

+1 for this feature! but not holding my breath...