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? 

[Jonathan Ginter]

This is crazy. Rational decisions are no longer being made in the product team at Atlassian. You've made the UI even more unusable. What the hell?

All you've done is to force me to put the same text in the Epic Name and the Epic Summary. If that was your intention, then why is the Epic Name still around at all?

[lila]

That is insane .. absolutely doesnt make sense 

[Dave Markham]

Why why why have you done this Atlassian?? Hundreds of Epics that now no longer display properly in dozens of boards

[antoine_viau]

Seriously! An development-first solution to a UX and semantical basic issue!
Epic name is an Epic name, a summary is a summary and a description is a description... why would you mess with that! Fix that ASAP!

[Liza Weir]

Can you make this a board setting so we can define what to display in our tiles (ie. the Epic Name or Epic Summary)?  My Sprint board is unreadable now... Epic descriptions are too long and all of our color conventions have been changed.  The team is lost visually.  Bad UX change and no one in our company was aware this was happening this weekend.  

[Trudy Claspill]

Hello @Liza Weir 

Welcome to the Atlassian community.

That sounds like a suggestion you should make directly to Atlassian. There are a few ways you can do that.

You can comment on their announcement/post on the topic:

https://community.atlassian.com/t5/Jira-Software-articles/Upcoming-changes-to-epic-fields-in-company-managed-projects/ba-p/1997562

You can ask your Jira Admins to raise this as a concern through a Support Case directly with Atlassian.

You can check Atlassian's public backlog to see if there is a suggestion for this already and add your vote/comments to it, or create your own suggestion:

https://jira.atlassian.com/secure/Dashboard.jspa

[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?

[Jonathan Ginter]

I think everyone agrees, Ollie. The problem is that Atlassian has just decided to invalidate that entire premise. The Epic Name is no longer used as a label on issues. It no longer has a purpose. The Epic Summary will have to adopt the same length and purpose as the now-deprecated (in my opinion) Epic Name.

[Angela Stephens]

I am not opposed to the change but it appears they didn't consider and account for all the impact of this change.  If you do not enter an Epic Name, you cannot search for Epics by keyword in the Epic Link field because the field appears to search again Epic Name not Summary!

[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!

[Arvind]

Why have 2 attributes then. Just remove Epic Name all over so its not confusing.

[Trudy Claspill]

@Arvind 

Atlassian is working on doing exactly that. You can reference the various links provided in the responses above to learn more about the change.

[Juston Points]

:)

[abentan_globant]

Hi Trudy Claspill,
I disagree with 'this is not a bug to be fixed', because it is. After using for years the Epic Name as a label for tasks in Kanban boards f.ex., this is its de facto meaning, no other, a label in a card to identify the Epic there. If now someone changed that meaning, that is an undesirable change, a bug from this point of view. Now Epic Name has no meaning.
From the articles:
https://community.atlassian.com/t5/Jira-Software-articles/Upcoming-changes-to-epic-fields-in-company-managed-projects/ba-p/1997562
https://community.atlassian.com/t5/Jira-articles/Upcoming-Rename-epics-in-your-company-managed-projects/ba-p/1874726

there are other groups of people for whom this change makes sense. The problem is that in that process, the other group of people lost clearly usability of the boards, they are hardly usable: watching cards in a board, we cannot identify which is the Epic belonging to that card, Epic Summaries were not created for that purpose until now, they were only 'summaries', no 'labels'.

As a workaround currently, for each Epic issue, we have to:
1- copy the current summary of the Epic
2- append it at the beginning of its description, to avoid losing it.
3- copy the Epic Name and past it in the Summary, replacing it

For these situations, some simple to use palliative should have been created. In the articles appears to export to CVS, modify and import, it looks a long process prone to errors. Why not a button to use the above process? which looks the most useful for most of the cases. Can this be done with automation?

Regards,
AB.

[Trudy Claspill]

Hello @abentan_globant 

Welcome to the Atlassian community.

Note I am not an Atlassian team member. I am just another user of their products.

To be clear, I am saying that from Atlassian's perspective this is not a bug to be fixed. They are making this change in functionality intentionally, and it is working as per their intention. Therefore, it is not a bug.

End users may not find the change desirable but that does not make it a bug, as it is working in accordance with the vendor's design.

I encourage you to reach out to Atlassian directly with your concerns and feedback. You can comment on the posts linked above. In Jira itself you can click on the Give Feedback button. Your Jira Admins can open a support case. If you have an Enterprise License Agreement you can consult with your Atlassian Engagement Manager.