Epics beget stories and stories beget subtasks

George Carvill
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September 13, 2012

Currently we have a two-level hierarchy. I would like to see three levels:

Epics --> Stories --> Sub-Tasks.

I would like the swimlanes to support this. For example, using the Story model, a horizontal band in one color for an Epic, then multiple horizontal bands for stories beneath it, and then the sub-task cards beneath the stories.

Presumption is that an Epic could span projects, a story could not.

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Lucas Molenaar
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September 13, 2012

Not sure if this will work but you could try creating swimlanes based on queries and add unique labels to the epic/stories, but that will require maintanance

e.g. (type = Epic OR type = Story) AND labels in (Sprint1,Sprint2)

George Carvill
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September 13, 2012

Thanks. I did, actually. But I found that the way the boards look based on queries is very different from those based on stories -- and I much prefer the story version.

George Carvill
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October 23, 2012

auto-email today suggests I should do one of the following:

  • Accept an answer (click the grey check mark)
  • Answer your own question, then accept your answer (find the 'Answer my own question' link underneath your question)
  • Edit your question for clarification
  • Add a comment for more information from an existing answer
  • Close the question, if it's invalid

But nothing has changed since Sept. 14 (above).

George Carvill
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October 29, 2012

Ditto today.

George Carvill
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November 28, 2012

The new way of handling epics is a good start. I'd still like to see three-level swimlanes, however.

0 votes
erento GmbH February 12, 2013

hi GeorgeCC, tnx - but i mean what JQL to use to group all stories belonging to an epic by swimlanes

So I have First Epic with a name Epic1 with Stories S1 and S2 and I have Second Epic with a name Epic2 with Stories SA and SB

Now in a “Work”-View I would like to see two swimlanes named Epic1 and Epic2 witch have they corresponding stories?

i.E. "Epic Link" = "EpicName2" OR "Epic Name" = "EpicName2" doesent work – any suggestions?


George Carvill
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February 12, 2013

Don't know the answer to that. We don't do it that way. Maybe someone else has an idea.

0 votes
erento GmbH February 12, 2013

hi GeorgeCC, can u pls tell how?

tia Nermin

George Carvill
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February 12, 2013
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George Carvill
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February 5, 2013

The latest Greenhopper changes (I think) finally made this work as we wanted it.

I can now group Stories into Epics.

0 votes
Peter Dittman February 4, 2013

I've struggled with this as well - finally just gave up, attributing the challenge to the impedence between a flat issue system (JIRA) and a heirarchical need (Agile story management) (it's not unlike the problem of implemented objects on a relational database - it's just hard).

Part of the issue is JQL does not understand the heirarchy - an issue is an issue, some have different types - but issues don't contain other issues (it's not an OO-based system), you have to emulate that containment as best you can; the swimlanes doesn't appear to enable it...

just my $0.02.

0 votes
Eric Sullender November 13, 2012

Apologize if my terminology is off, this is my first day with Jira/Greenhopper and I'm trying to figure out if it will work for my company.

I can manually create swimlanes based on an epic in the Scrum Board (JQL: "epic link" = OS-238). Which looks fine.. but if the Story has sub-tasks then those sub-tasks show up under "Everything Else". I would like them to either not show up or, ideally, show up under the story in the epic swimlane. Any ideas?

0 votes
Eric Sullender November 13, 2012

Ok, i figured out how to hide the sub-tasks under "Everything Else" with a quick filter: "type not in subTaskIssueTypes()"

Still would be great if Epics was a dropdown in the swimlanes selection and stories from the epic were shown with sub-stories grouped under them.

0 votes
Eric Sullender November 13, 2012

Apologize if my terminology is off, this is my first day with Jira/Greenhopper and I'm trying to figure out if it will work for my company.

I can manually create swimlanes based on an epic in the Scrum Board (JQL: "epic link" = OS-238). Which looks fine.. but if the Story has sub-tasks then those sub-tasks show up under "Everything Else". I would like them to either not show up or, ideally, show up under the story in the epic swimlane. Any ideas?

0 votes
George Carvill
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October 9, 2012

Received the e-mail below today. But none of the choices match. What I'd like is for Atlassian to consider this for an enhancement.

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* Epics beget stories and stories beget subtasks

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