How do you associate an story to an epic if you don't have a scrum board?

[Karie Kelly]

How do I initially create a story and associate it to an epic that does not yet have existing stories without have a scrum board?

Our scrum boards only pull in stories that have been groomed and ready and epics are not yet incorporated into kanban boards. We use kanban to follow the process of grooming (e.g. create > vet out acceptance criteria so that it is ready for grooming > story point > then assign the associated roadmap version to start). Only once that it is done is is availabile in the backlog for sprint planning which is a scrum board.

There is associated epic issues on an epic, but it only appears once you have at least one.

I cannot figure out how to start the association though and need to explain to all of our scrum teams and product owners.

Ideas on this are appreciated.

[Karie Kelly · Accepted solution]

The latest version of GH now supports this in JIRA

[JoanneA]

Hi Karie,

At the moment, unfortunately there's no way to properly associate issues with epics on a Kanban board. You could create a separate Scrum board that does show stories that are not yet groomed and use it just for the purposes of associating to epics.

There is an open feature request to add plan view to Kanban, you can watch progress on it here:

https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/GHS-6175

Please also add your vote on this issue!

[Karie Kelly]

I voted on it and provided a comment. I would rather Atlassian not introduce features until they fully work; having items introduce this way makes adoption actually harder. Folks won't use it if it makes for more work. I cannot suggest that a separate board be created to do this; my suggestion to the team is to not utilize the feature at all until it provides value and not increase work which is really too bad given its potential value to those trying to assess total scope and effort of an epic.

[codelab expert]

1. Be sure that the field "epic" is visible in your screens

2. Create an epic.

3. Create a story and assign it to an epic using the epic field

[Christian Czaia [Decadis AG]]

Maybe have a look at the "Epic/Theme" field. Make sure the field is visible (I mean check the fields context).

[Karie Kelly]

I have Epic Link on the screen and it's associated to any issue type and all projects. I've used the Where's my field? option and input Epic Link and the response is that it should be on the screen. But, none of the epic fields display, regardless of the issue type/project.

[Karie Kelly]

That is configured for all issues all projects as well. None of the epic links that are associated with global issues types and projects don't appear on create or edit. And the Where's my field check also confirms that they should be visible.