Portfolio Parent Link for Stories?

[Matthias Kannenberg]

I create a Theme issue and I can link Epics to Themes using the Parent Lin field.

But how can I link Stories to themes? I want a story without a parent epic to be linked to a theme and as long as I don't have an Epic Link set on the story, I get the selection box, but typing in Theme Names or IDs does not find any Themes.

[Roi Fine]

Hi Matthias, 

We call what you call a theme, an initiative but essentially it does not matter as both represent a work item with higher hierarchy than an epic. 

Answering your question, there is no way to link a story to a higher level work item other than epics. That means you can't "jump over" an hierarchy level. I.e: a sub-task can't be linked to an epic.

Hope that helps,  

[Kelley Cooper]

What happens if you have a Story which is small enough to complete in a sprint that just happens to NOT be part of an Epic?  If you can't associate it with the lowest level in the Portfolio hierarchy what do you do?  Please don't say create an epic for it...I just got people to stop believing every Story MUST be associated with an Epic.