Multiple Kanban Boards, with different Workflows in a Single Project

[Candice Cleaveland]

 We are trying to see if we can accomplish the following and are running into an issue. 

Current State: 
One Project with multiple teams, One Workflow and Set Issue Types (Epic, Issues, Story, Bug).

What We Want To Change:

• We want to create a different Kanban Board in this project, with a different workflow only focusing on the Issue Type: Epic.
• We created the Kanban Board and new Columns we want. But we can't create new statuses unless we create a new workflow, and we need to be able to utilize multiple workflows at the same time in different boards. 

Is this possible? Appreciate your help in advance! 

[Trudy Claspill · Accepted solution]

Hello @Candice Cleaveland 

A Workflow is associated to 1..n Issue Types in a project. An Issue Type can be associated to only one Workflow within a given project.

If your project is Team Managed, the Project Administrator can customize the workflows for each issue type in the project.

If your project is Company Managed, then you will need to work with a Jira Administrator to get a custom workflow set up for the Epic issue type for your project.

A board is just a view of and a way to manipulate issues in 1..n projects. The workflows are determined by the issues and the projects that are within the scope of the board. The board does not determine the workflow (except in the very limited case where a Simplified Workflow is used - which does not match the use case you are trying to implement).

In the Board there will be columns. The Statuses in all the workflows in all the issues in scope for the board will be available for mapping to those columns. You can map multiple statuses to a single column. As you move the issues between columns they are still governed by the workflow associated to their issue type in their project. You won't be able to assign them to a status that is not available to them.

Can you clarify what you mean exactly by "utilize multiple workflows at the same time in different boards"?

[Candice Cleaveland]

Hi Trudy! This is so helpful thank you. Correct we are not using a Simplified Board. 

Our perfect scenario is:
Current Kanban board - One Workflow and Set Issue Types (Epic, Issues, Story, Bug). This view we use to organize everything tied under a Parent Epic in four columns/respective statuses. 

New! Kanban board - Separate Workflow and Set Issue Type (Parent Epics only). This view we use to do higher level project management with ten columns/respective statuses. 

[Trudy Claspill]

Hello Candice,

For the first board you said the issue type are Epic, Issues, Story, Bug. And you said these are "under a Parent Epic".

For the second board you said the issue type is "Parent Epics".

Q1: Can you confirm that the Epics from the first board and the "Parent Epics" in the second board actually the different issue types? Is "Parent Epic" an issue type that you added to the Issue Hierarchy configuration above the Epic in the https://<yourbaseURL>/jira/settings/issues/issue-hierarchy screen ?

Q2: Are all of the issues in these two boards going to be in the same project?

[Candice Cleaveland]

Hi Trudy - 

Q1:

• Can you confirm that the Epics from the first board and the "Parent Epics" in the second board actually the different issue types? They are!
• Is "Parent Epic" an issue type that you added to the Issue Hierarchy configuration above the Epic in the https://<yourbaseURL>/jira/settings/issues/issue-hierarchy screen ? Yes!

Q2: Are all of the issues in these two boards going to be in the same project? Yes they will be! Essentially we are trying to create two boards in the same project, two different workflows, but same data.

[Trudy Claspill]

Hello @Candice Cleaveland 

You can indeed have one workflow that applies to your Epic, Issue, Story, and Bug issue types and a different workflow that applies to your Parent Epic issue type, in the same project. Since it is a Company Managed project you will have to work with a Jira Administrator to get that set up. Information about that can be found here:

https://support.atlassian.com/jira-cloud-administration/docs/create-and-manage-issue-workflows-and-issue-workflow-schemes/

You can create filters to retrieve the issues you want for each board:

Board 1: project=X and issuetype!="Parent Epic"

Board 2: project=X and issuetype="Parent Epic"

(Where I used "Parent Epic" use the actual name of your Parent Epic issue type.)

Save those filters and share them with the people who will need to be able to see the respective boards.

You would then create two boards, one based on each saved filter. More information on that can be found here:

https://support.atlassian.com/jira-software-cloud/docs/create-a-board-based-on-filters/

[Candice Cleaveland]

Hi Trudy! Thank you so much. We're going to review these resources and see if we can accomplish this! 

[Trudy Claspill]

You're welcome, Candice!

If you find that my responses end up helping you achieve your needs, please consider coming back here and clicking on the Accept Answer button.