The new SAFe Epic to Feature Translator for Jira – the Safest Way to Translate Epics to Features

[#1]

The team here at cPrime has just released a new SAFe epic to feature (E2F) translator for Jira which helps to complete SAFe implementations by translating native Jira terminology (“epics”) into terminology used in SAFe (“features”).

Why is this needed?

If you have experience in using the SAFe framework, you will have noticed that the terms used in Jira and SAFe do not match up, even though they are essentially describing the same concepts. 

Someone on your team (definitely not you…) may have tried to change the Jira software native fields to better match with your company’s SAFe workflow and discovered, well, that doesn’t quite work. Scan the Atlassian community threads and there are several companies bemoaning their failed attempts to change the name of fields in Jira agile with near catastrophic results. The risks of changing a field name in Jira are multiple and this is why custom fields used by Jira Software are locked for any modifications for Jira Admins. Every such field has the description “Used by Jira Software, do not remove or modify”, and this notification is not for fun!

Risks of changing a field name include causing:

• the functionality of Jira software to break
• reports to stop working or work incorrectly
• ticket links to be lost (or lost sub issues)
• duplication of fields with the same name. This could be caused during updates when Jira cannot locate certain fields and creates them anew.

Basically, if you change the name of the field there is no way for other plugins which are using the API connections to locate this field properly. It’s the same as removing a relation or a link between the plugins and the field. Because it is so hard to keep track of which plugins are using relation by name and what consequences it will lead to, your teams cannot manage or work around this.

Never fear, SAFe Epic to Feature Translator for Jira is here!

The cPrime team is always striving to provide the easiest and most effective way for our clients to use Jira. As such, we’ve developed a new plugin using an Atlassian approved approach to safely translate fields from the Jira Admin UI to match with the SAFe terminology for a seamless approach to task management. The E2F translator for Jira ensures fields are matched properly so all reports and functions of Jira continue to work properly. We have a number of large scale clients safely using our plugin on instances with 10,000+ users already!

Here are some examples in action:

#1 – Defining your enterprise hierarchy of work items: If you’re not using cPrime’s SAFe epic to feature translator, there may be some confusion among teams about the status of work as work items don’t carry across easily from SAFe planning into the Jira board. However, using this plugin organizations can “standardize” a work item hierarchy which makes data consistent and easier to trace.

For example:

• A developer can now see the story he works on and how it connects to the larger feature that will be released soon.
• An executive can now start top-down and can drill into a Feature from Confluence and see all the component level work associated with it.
• All levels now have the context of the work item in their reporting and conversations. Think normalization and standardization.

#2 – Tracking the status of features:

• navigate to the issue search in Jira
• run a JQL search for issuetype = Feature
• cut out Features that are done. status ! = Resolved

“Visualize the query being translated from Epic to Feature Issue Type”

Seamlessly transfer your SAFe workflow into Jira? Now we’re speaking the same language! To get your free 30 trial simply visit the Atlassian Marketplace and see for yourself how easy it is to translate your SAFe requirements into Jira.

[John Horwath]

It does not cost much and it works perfectly, except on JIRA Portfolio.  Great add-on, if you are a SAFe company!

[Chris Che]

@John HorwathDo you mean this plug-in does NOT work well with JIRA Portfolio function ?

[Michele Lim [Cprime]]

Hi Chris, we support JIRA Portfolio from version 1.0.1 of SAFe EPIC to Feature Translator for Jira :) 

[Chris Che]

@Michele Lim [cPrime]This is good. How much is the cost for the plug-in please?

[Michele Lim [Cprime]]

Hi Chris, it depends how many people you have, you can find the pricing details on this page https://marketplace.atlassian.com/apps/1218959/safe-epic-to-feature-translator-for-jira?hosting=server&tab=pricing let me know if you have any other questions, I'm happy to help!

[Chip V]

Does this plugin compatible with BigPicture plugin? 

[Milena Gonzalez]

Hi

I would like to know if they will update the add-on to be compatible with recent versions of Jira, or if they know of another add-on that meets this need

Thanks

[Cprime Apps]

Hi Milena,

Our dev team is already working on the compatibility, we expect to be ready with the compatible version any day now.

Cheers,
Cprime

[John Horwath]

Sorry, it works perfect in Jira and for all levels of SAFe.  I am not sure what I meant on my original comment.  

[Deleted user]

Is the Plugin available for Cloud yet ?

I am the user of Atlassian Cloud  and found this plugin very useful for our customers. But its only supported by Server version at the moment.

Waiting for the Cloud supported version.

[Selvakumar Nagalingam]

Our company is using this plugin for Server / Data center. However, we are in the process of moving to Atlassian Cloud for Confluence, JIRA and Bitbucket. Please let me know when Cloud version of this plugin will be available.

[Dave Cuff]

I have a strange issue.  If I create a user in JIRA and then assign them to a project they see the SAFe version of EPIC's and Features however if the user first registers via IT service desk and then we assign them JIRA software they see teh JIRA standard of EPIC and Story.  Anyu ideas?

Update:

I think I have solved this issue:  It turns out JIRA Service Desk had a different default language to JIRA Software so the users were being created with a language that had not been translated