How can I remove Epics from my Backlog filter?

[Alan Ferneyhough]

Please see the screenshot below

The Epic: "System Upgrades" is shown in my list of Epics in my Team Managed backlog

However the child tickets are all resolved (I have created a new "Done" type status to Archive tickets I do not need) and the Epic itself is resolved.

I expect that if the Epic is done and the child tickets are also done, then the Epic should not be shown in the Backlog

It would appear that the only way that an Epic can be removed from this list is if all of the tickets in the Epic are set to the specific status of Done.

I am very surprised at this, as this will naturally mean that this list will keep on growing as there are inevitably epics where all of the child tickets are not required as a natural result of grooming the tickets in my backlog.

I already have an unmanageable list of epics which do not have any tickets associated in my backlog

Surely there must be something I am doing wrong here?

[Trudy Claspill · Accepted solution]

Hello @Alan Ferneyhough 

Welcome to the community.

Is your Archive status mapped to the right-most column of your board?

I created a test Team Managed project. In it I created a workflow with two statuses in the "Done" status category (Done and Archived). I mapped both statuses to the right-most column of my board.

I created and epic with two stories. I set the status of one story to Done and the status of the other story to Archive.

I then set the status of the Epic to Archive.

When I made that last change, the Epic was removed from the Epic pane.

This tells me that the statuses of all the stories in the Epic do not have to be the same, and do not have to be set specifically to Done. All the stories and the Epic do need to be set to statuses mapped to the right-most column of the board, though.

[Alan Ferneyhough]

Thank you @Trudy Claspill that has also worked for me :)

I had the Archived status as an Unassigned status on my board, as you might expect for this type of status (basically it's a "will not do" status)

Now I have (with some trepidation) moved this status to my "Done" column, and the Epic panel has magically tidied itself up!

Thanks for helping me with this issue,

Alan

[Eoin]

Hi @al and @Trudy Claspill

You don't need to have the statuses mapped to the same column - but you do need to ensure the statuses of the epic and the children are all in the Done status category (and hence have a resolution applied), and that all the child issues have been cleared from the view. Mapping the statuses to the same column will give you a more compact board view.

For example, when working in sprints you must complete the sprint, or when working in a kanban mode you must clear the issues from the relevant column. We do this because the epic panel doubles as a filter as well as a work breakdown/grouping tool - and we keep the epic visible as long as you can filter for the child issues in the epic - which is as long as these child issues are visible.

Let me know your thoughts.

Cheers

[Alan Ferneyhough]

Hi @Eoin thanks for that - the only thing is that I am not sure this is how it is working.

From my screenshot you should be able to see that the Epic and the children are all set to either Archived or Done.

Archived is set as a "Done" status category and as you can see from the screenshot below, the tickets in this category (just a random sample below) all have a resolution date set.

So unless I am not following you correctly, I don't think the system is behaving as you described.

It's not a biggie for me as the previous solution has worked (however it may not seem completely intuitive), but I thought I should respond in case the information is useful to you.

Many thanks,

Alan

[Eoin]

Thanks for responding @Alan Ferneyhough That's what I was slightly worried about. I've tried to recreate and I don't have the problem so I may be doing something different to you. If you wanted to jump on zoom at some point I'd love to see if we can tease out why we see different behavior. I understand you've got a solution with the workaround already and that this would also probably require you to change your teams' config again so no worries if it's too much hassle.

Cheers

Eoin

[Alan Ferneyhough]

Hi @Eoin I'd be happy to show you over Zoom if it helps the product.

I've been a happy JIRA user for 5+ years and this is the first thing I've found where there was not a simple resolution.

FYI I removed my "Archived" status from the Done column in my Team Managed Board, and the old epics did not reappear in my Epic filter, however when I created a new Epic with a couple child records, set both to Archived, and then set the Epic to Done, it was not removed from the filter.

So easy enough to replicate if you need :)

Let me know when would be a good time - I am available for a quick zoom between 1pm and 5pm GMT today.

Cheers,

Alan