Displaying 1 Epic across Multiple Boards

[Linky Link]

Hi All,

I'm fairly new to Jira, so please be patient with me. 

Where I work, we have a project with multiple boards.

For example, Project + Board 1 is mainly to track Epics (EPIC 1, EPIC 2, EPIC 3 etc).

Under the same project there are a few other boards. Let's call them Board 2 and Board 3.

In Board 2, we would like to track 1 Epic (EPIC 1), see the swimlanes and various stories/tasks and sub tasks associated with it.

In Board 3, we would like to track a different Epic (EPIC 2), see the swimlanes and various stories/tasks and sub tasks associated with it.

Is this doable or do I need to create a new EPIC for each board in order to see them in swim lanes?

Thanks in advance!

Regards,
Link

[Piotr Zadrożny _Eyzee_]

Hi @Linky Link 

Welcome to Atlassian Community!

You can have many boards visible on single project and every one of them can show different issues so your "use case" is possible to configure. Every board is associated with specific filter to show specific set of issues. You can just have several JQL filters showing different issues and then create boards associated with those filters. 

You can also use only 2 boards using Quick filters (buttons on your board to filter issues by provided criteria). You can have 1 board to track epics and 1 board to track task/stories under filtered (using quick filters) epic.

To configure both you will need to create a filter that will filter issues under specific epic. This part is easy and you can just create something like "Epic Link" = ABC-1 to filter those issues. Unfortunatelly if you need to display also subtasks of thos issues you need to use 3-rd party addon to enhance Jira JQL capabilities like ScriptRunner - 'Epic Link' = ABC-1 OR issuefunction in subtasksOf ("'Epic Link' = ABC-1")

Board filter configuration docs - here.

Board quick filter configuration docs - here.

Best regards,

Piotr

[Linky Link]

Hi @Piotr Zadrożny _Eyzee_ 

Thanks for the quick reply and links. I believe I have configured the boards properly. If i go to the backlog, I can see the issues/stories/tasks based on my filters. However, I am unable to see any Epics associated with these stories, although under the stories, they are already linked to an Epic.

Also, if I were to click on User Story Map, it seems to require me to create a new Epic in order for me to utilise the Story Map feature. Is this correct? I can't seem to be able to use the existing Epic which I have created (EPIC 1) and see the stories/tasks associated to them.

My goal is to be able to see the Epics created in the project in specific boards without having to create new ones, so I can see them in the User Story Map and backlog. 

Regards,
Link

[Marta L]

Hi @Linky Link !

I encountered similar problem and the root cause was the filter query of the board or at least how Atlassian designed that query to “react”.

if you want to see epics in the board, they need to be linked to the query of the board somehow (via labeling, the epics, as well) and the query should have the indication within, too.

For example: one board’s query has a label X within, then you should place that label into the relevant epic, too - retroactively. As adding a label into the query works only for the to be created issues.

[Henri Seymour _Easy Agile_]

I'm from the team at Easy Agile -- we provide a User Story Map for Jira in our app Easy Agile TeamRhythm. 

If your teams's User Story Map is in the TeamRhythm app, I can confirm that the app will pull in all (and only) the epics that are already on your Board in Jira. If you can fix this for your Backlog, it'll work in the User Story Map too! 

Piotr and Matra are correct that you'll need to make sure that your board filter query includes your epics specifically (not just the issues connected to them). 

This might mean editing your board filter query to include: 

• the Project your epics are in, or
• adding labels/components/fields to your epics so they meet the board filter the same way your issues already do, or 
• using an "OR (issuetype = Epic AND ...)" to add a specific set of epics to your board (from wherever they currently "live") 

It will come down to knowing how you identify which epics you need, and how a board filter can identify them.