Do I have to be a project admin for its issues to show up on my scrum board?

[Greg Mueller]

I've created a filter on my scrum board where I take issues from specific epics from one project and all the issues in the other project.  In the filter query, the issues show up correctly.  When I used this as the saved filter on my scrum board, the issues all show up in the backlog, but only the epics from one project show up on the epics panel.   

The epics show up on the project which Im filtering all issues in the project.  Im also an admin for that project, but not for the other (the one where the epics dont display).  

Does anyone understand why that might be, or how I could get those epics to appear? 

I did a test where I changed the filter to select for another project, for which I am an admin as well.   Then, the epics did show up.  So do I need to be a project admin for this to work, or can the project admin give permission to specific epics?

[Trudy Claspill · Accepted solution]

Hello @Greg Mueller 

Welcome to the Atlassian community.

Are you working with Jira Cloud or Jira Data Center? If your URL looks similar to the following, it is Jira Cloud:

https://<something>.atlassian.net

What is the status of the missing Epics? Completed Epics will not be displayed in the Epics panel in the backlog screen.

Epics have a regular "Status" field (like all issues do) and an "Epic Status" field. Previously in Jira the display of Epics in the panel was based on the "Epic Status" field, which was also by default not actually shown in the Epic issue details. Recently in Jira Cloud Atlassian has been rolling out a change for the display in the panel to be based on the Status Category of the regular Status assigned to the Epic.

So, depending on your hosting type (cloud vs. DC) the Epics may not display because the Status of the Epic is on that is in the "Done" Status Category or because the "Epic Status" for the Epic is set to Done.

[Greg Mueller]

Must be Data center then.  

So there are two epics.  One has a status of in progress, the other has a status of To Do. 

When I edit the epics, I dont see a status field or an epic status field.  Am I looking in the wrong place?

[Trudy Claspill]

When you are viewing the issue details for an Epic you should see at least the Status field. Here's an example:

As I said the "Epic Status" field is not, by default, included on the screens for displaying Epic issue details.

The Epic Status field is set by using the Mark As Done option for an Epic from the Epics panel.

I would usually establish a standard of setting the Epic Status field automatically as part of the workflow transitions, so that it would always be set to a value that appropriately corresponded to the regular Status field.

If you use the Issue Search screen and change it from Detail View to List View you can add the fields Status and Epic Status field to see the values of each field. This is an example (from Jira Cloud)

[Greg Mueller]

I can see that the epic isn't marked as done. 

Also, when I search for all issues, and bring up the filter types, "Epic Status" is grey out and it says that "Epic status is not applicable for the current project and/or issue type".

[Trudy Claspill]

Epic Status applies only to Epics. You have to set your filter to include only Epic issue types.

[Greg Mueller]

Oh, duh.   I can confirm those epics are not in a "done" epic status.   Both are "To Do".   How would I update the Epic Status?

[Trudy Claspill]

If the Epic Status is "To Do" you don't need to change it.

Can you share with us the JQL of your filter and an example Epic that you expect to display in the Epics panel but which is not displaying?

[Greg Mueller]

project in (UMMGRP) AND "Epic Link" in (UMMGRP-1444, UMMGRP-1460) OR project in (RAIL) ORDER BY Rank ASC

Issues from UMMGRP-1444 and UMMGRP-1460 appear in the board backlog, but not on the Epics panel.  

Not sure if that is useful for you, please let me know what else I can provide. 

[Trudy Claspill]

Based on the filter you showed you will get

- issues that are children of the Epics UMMGRP-1444 and UMMGRP-1460 and that are also in the UMMGRP project, plus

- issues that are in the rail PROJECT

The filter is not defined to include the Epics UMMGRP-1444, UMMGRP-1460 or any other Epics from the UMMGRP project.

If that doesn't match what you intend, can you explain which issues you want from the each project?

[Greg Mueller]

Oh - those are the issues I want, but how would I include the actual epic-level issues as well (UMMGRP-1444 and UMMGRP-1460)?

[Trudy Claspill]

Add another clause to your statement:

OR issue in (UMMGRP-1444, UMGGRP-1460)

[Greg Mueller]

could I just replace the first two clauses w/ issue in (UMMGRP-1444, UMGGRP-1460)?

[Trudy Claspill]

No.

"issue in" retrieves the issues specified between the parentheses. It does not retrieve issues that are children of, parents of, or linked to those issues. 

You need both of these clauses to get the Epics and their child issues.

issue in (UMMGRP-1444, UMGGRP-1460) OR (project in (UMMGRP) AND "Epic Link" in (UMMGRP-1444, UMMGRP-1460))

[Greg Mueller]

Now I have:

project in (UMMGRP) AND "Epic Link" in (UMMGRP-1444, UMMGRP-1460) OR issue in (UMMGRP-1444, UMGGRP-1460) OR project in (RAIL) ORDER BY key DESC, issuetype DESC, Rank ASC

Which seems redundant - why wouldnt "issue in" bring up the epics? Isnt an epic an issue? 

But the bigger problem is that now, UMMGRP-1444 shows in the board epic panel, but UMMGRP-1460 still isnt in the epic panel.  

[Trudy Claspill]

issue in (UMMGRP-1444, UMMGRP-1460) brings in exactly the issues you specified - UMMGRP-1444 and UMMGRP-1460, which are Epics.

project in (UMMGRP) AND "Epic Link" in (UMMGRP-1444, UMMGRP-1460) brings in issues that are in the UMMGRP project (of any type) that also are child issues of any of the specified Epics - UMMGRP-1444 and UMMGRP-1460.

project in (RAIL) brings in any issues of any type that are in the RAIL project.

As to UMMGRP-1460 still not being present in the Epics panel it looks to me like you have a typo in your filter; two G's instead of two M's

[Greg Mueller]

Thank you so much for all your help!   That did it. 

Related question - are you familiar with Big Picture at all?  I'd like to create a Big Picture view across these projects. 

[Trudy Claspill]

I have not worked with Big Picture before. Regardless, if you have questions about Big Picture that should be a separate Question posted in the community.

I recommend that you first review the documentation provided by the app vendor. If you can't figure it out from there, then I recommend you open a new Question to ask for help.

If your questions/problems posted about filtering in this thread have been addressed, please consider marking the Answer as Accepted.

[Greg Mueller]

Hi, 

Circling back on this.  The list of relevant Epics is growing, as is the complexity of my filter.  Is there no way to have a single query that captures entire epics?  the epics and all issues within them? 

[Trudy Claspill]

There are other ways that you could manage selection of the Epics and their child issues.

You could use a separate field that you set on the desired Epics and on all their child issues; i.e.

(Project = UMMGRP and "Get this issue" = "Yes")

...would get all the issue in project UMMGRP where the "Get this issue" field was set to Yes, regardless of issue type.

There is not a native Jira JQL function available where you can specify a list of Epics (by issue key) and get both the Epics and all their child issues. You can review the available native JQL functions and fields here:

https://confluence.atlassian.com/jirasoftwareserver/advanced-searching-functions-reference-939938746.html

https://confluence.atlassian.com/jirasoftwareserver/advanced-searching-fields-reference-939938743.html

There are several third party apps that extend JQL functionality.

https://marketplace.atlassian.com/search?hosting=dataCenter&product=jira&query=jql

The ones I have worked with though still have separate functions for returning Epics vs. returning child issues.