Why is Backlog showing Epic summary not Epic Name?

[Ben]

Hello, 

I am learning Jira, in the course I am doing, the backlog displays Epic names, but in my Jira, Backlog displays Epic summary. 

Why is that?

[Trudy Claspill · Accepted solution]

Hello @Ben 

Welcome to the Atlassian community!

Atlassian is making changes in Epics so that Company Managed projects and Team Managed projects handle Epics the same way. Previously Epic Name applied only to Epics in Company Managed projects.

They announced the recent roll out of the change here under the heading "Changes to epic fields in company-managed projects". There is also a link there to an article they published 2022 about the changes they were planning.

[Ollie Guan]

@Ben 

Changes labeled ROLLING OUT are being gradually rolled out and may not be on your site just yet.

====================================

We've made changes to epics on your board and backlog to more closely align epics across company-managed and team-managed projects.

Epics on your board and backlog will now display the epic’s Issue summary in their lozenge and on the epic panel. Additionally, the epic color on the board and backlog will now use the epic’s Issue color.

These updates will also apply to the Epic link field in the issue view. Learn more about these changes

===================================

[Ben]

this change makes no sense.

Why would you want to display Epic Summary instead of Epic Name?

There is so little space in the backlog view for Epic so why would you want to display the longer Epic Summary? 

[Ollie Guan]

Hi @Ben ,

Epic Name: It is a short identifier for the epic. It is used as a label on issues belonging to the given epic.

Epic Summary: It is observed whenever Jira will be displaying the epic.

As you said, the Epic name should be displayed here. Can you expand an Epic so I can see the difference between the Epic name and the Summary content?

[Ben]

Hi I have deleted all my Epics and tried to create a new Epic with the following details.

As you can see, the epic name is Epic 1000 Name and summary is Epic 1000 Summary.

And in the backlog, Epic 1000 Summary is displayed

and the expanded version of the same Epic.

As you can see, the Epic Summary is displayed instead of Epic Name.

[Ollie Guan]

Try to re-establish a Company-managed project, will the Epic name be displayed in backlog?

[Ben]

Hi Ollie,

My project is already a Company-managed project.

Ben.

[Lizz Stutler]

Hello, I'm struggling with the same issue. The backlog and sprint cards are now showing the field called "Summary" rather than the Epic Name. We use the Epic Name to organize tickets on the backlog and easily track that all of our sprint goals are met under specific Epics. The Epic Summary has a longer character limit and we use that to display the functional requirement which does not lend itself to this view.

Is there any way to fix the backlog and sprint card views so that the Epic Name shows rather than the Epic Summary?

Here's a pic of our backlog with the Epic's shown. Note the text that wraps off of the page and makes the Epic title impossible to discern from each other in this view.

[Trudy Claspill]

As this is an intentional change by Atlassian to make the functionality of Team Managed projects and Company Managed projects align better, it is not a "bug" to be "fixed". Eventually all Jira Cloud systems will have this change.

You could provide your feedback on this change by adding a comment to this article they published 2022 about the changes they were planning. I've not yet found the change request in their public Jira tracking system where a comment could be added. Or, depending on the level of support you pay for, you could provide your feedback through a support ticket or your account manager.

[Karen Waters]

Thanks - I added a comment to the article where the change was described, asking them to please change it back!