"epic can't be a parent issue of a story jira"

[Tim Horst]

We're trying to move stories under epics, but are getting the following error:

"epic can't be a parent issue of a story jira"

Yet, I see Epics are number 1 in the hierarchy:

Am I not understanding how the levels work?

Thanks!

[Mike Maurer]

Hi @Tim Horst ,

your hierarchy looks pretty wild. :)

The higher the number, the higher the level. So your order has to be the other way round in my opinion.

If you don't used to the hierarchy use the standard, it's very useful.

This is standard:

But pay attention: 

Changing your issue type hierarchy will break existing parent and child relationships between your issues.

When you attempt to modify the existing structure of your issue type hierarchy, Jira will calculate the impact of these changes and require confirmation to proceed.

Please ensure that you understand the risks and impact of changing your issue type hierarchy before modifying its structure as once these changes are made, they cannot be undone.

See also:

https://support.atlassian.com/jira-cloud-administration/docs/configure-the-issue-type-hierarchy/

I hope this helps you and you can fix the hierarchy.

Best

Mike

[Tim Horst]

Thanks @Mike Maurer. I am not sure how it ended up this way. I'll need to check with the scrum master on this project and find out.

[Mike Maurer]

Yes, talk to the scrum master. If you already have a lot of issues in company-managed projects and you are using this hierarchy it will be complicated to fix that.

But I can hardly imagine you use it this way at all.

Keep it simple and don't use too many levels. For the beginning the standard is sufficient.

[Tim Horst]

Again, thanks for the help. This is a relatively new Jira instance so hopefully altering the hierarchy won't cause too heartache, and it might explain some issues other teams were having.

[Trudy Claspill]

Hello @Tim Horst 

Adding to what others have said...

The issue type hierarchy (the first image you shared) can be changed only by a Jira Administrator. If your Scrum master is not also a Jira Administrator they could not have made the change on their own.

The page displays the issue type hierarchy from highest level to lowest level. Disregard the numbers on the left. So, in a cascading list from parent to child to grandchild and so on your hierarchy current is

Bug
|-- Task
    |-- Spike
        |-- Story
            |-- Feature
                |-- Epic
                    |-- any remaining issue types in the "standard" category
                        |-- issue types in the "sub-task" category

At any given level an issue at that level:

- may have a parent only from the issue types in the level directly above it

- may have children only from the issue types in the level directly below it. 

You can mix up the parent/child relationships skipping over intervening levels.

[Tim Horst]

@Trudy Claspill Thanks!

[Florian Bonniec]

Hi @Tim Horst 

Subtask is the lower level possible then there is the 'Task' level that is usually Story and/or Task. Then Epic. You cannot change this hierarchy but you can add level on top of it. Once the hierarchy is define you map issue types to it. 

https://support.atlassian.com/jira-software-cloud/docs/configure-custom-hierarchy-levels-in-advanced-roadmaps/

https://www.atlassian.com/agile/project-management/epics-stories-themes

Regards