We've taken the approach below to track work from customer through to execution. However, we're pretty confident this is NOT the right way. Trying to figure out the right way.
Our organization is heavy into research & development. We created a Project & Plan to collect requests for new IT solutions from all over the organization. Each directorate within the organization can see their requests within the plan. They generate Epics right now as their requests. These Epics have the details from the customers' perspective and are ranked in prioritized backlogs for each directorate.
The IT department takes work from these prioritized backlogs and generates items within their own Advanced Roadmaps plans/program and links the generated items back to the associated Epics from the customers. They're required to update both their roadmap items and the linked Epics from the customers since they're merely linked.
While it works, its a bit clunky and we have to believe we just missed the right training or article on doing it better.
Recommendations from any Jira sages, ninjas, or wise-people would be greatly appreciated.