New here, setting up a project, what is minimum required? (project already outlined in MS Project)

[John Duncan]

Can I just enter all the tasks, tying them to user stories and epics to emulate the hierarchy in the MS Project plan?  

Or do I also have to create a backlog, a release, and a sprint?

I entered a few user stories under an epic, but when I go look at the issues for that epic, it says there are none.  For example in MS Project there is a summary task "Discovery".  I made this an epic.  Then added user stories under it (e.g. Vendor Research, Vendor Demos, Vendor Selection, etc.)

In addition, there are tasks to be assigned to various internal teams, as well as three different vendors.  How can I associate the issues to these teams, short of creating imaginary users to reflect them?

[jesusoros]

About the Task assignment, a good question you must ask yourself is: Will there be restictions between this teams (one should not be able to look at the other's tickets)?

Remember that is not necessary for your Epic to be on the same project as the rest of your user stories.

[John Duncan]

The teams likely won't even be on Jira.  The reference to the team is to help me track who is responsible, but for now I will be the person updating the status of the issues. 

This is a prototyping exercise -- trying to parallel in Jira, for this particular project, what we have historically been doing in MS Project.

We are trying to use the Epics to group the related user stories (tasks).

[jesusoros]

For your teams you could use the Components feature on JIRA that will allow you to identify the group that belongs on that activity and you can filter the tasks by Components ;)

[John Duncan]

That's a good idea.  Initially I was putting a value for the Component, that corresponded to the summary level task on the MS Project plan.  But the Epic may be able to cover that need.

[jesusoros]

Hi @John Duncan,

Question ... On the user stories that you created, is there the "Epic Link" field populated with the corresponding Epic?

[John Duncan]

Thanks for the quick response. 

There is an epic link.  I also created a component too, just in case that might be an option for filtering/grouping later...

[jesusoros]

Even with the Epic link added on the users stories you still get the "This epic does not contain any issues?

[John Duncan]

That's correct.

Other factors:  there is no backlog, and no sprint.  Also the issues are not assigned to anyone yet.  (since we were going to tag them with a team, since we don't always know who will be doing the actual work)

But I still expected to be able to see them tied to the epic.  

This is why the question is geared towards - what is the minimum setup I need to have in place.