Options for further restricting editing of closed epics.

[Leena Siddamshetty]

When epics are marked Done/Closed and removed from the Epic menu in the backlog of a project, new issues can still be associated with those epics. This is really frustrating for everyone.

I am looking for a way to prevent this. Such as, keeping the epic from appearing in the dropdown on the Create Issue screen, or an error that pops up when trying to associate an issue with a closed Epic.

Wondering if there are any of the following options exist (listed in order of preference). 

1. A setting within Jira that prevents issues from being associated with closed Epics. 
2. A plugin that prevents issues from being associated with closed Epics.
3. A query or other way to identify closed epics with open stories. Opening each epic individually is obviously not a sustainable solution.
4. Other options??? Feel free to suggest!

[Ivan Lima · Accepted solution]

Another possible solution would be removing the permission to link issues using workflow properties. However, it will apply to all issue types associated with the workflow, so you have to isolate it if you want that to be enforced for epics only.

• Workflow properties

• Can we disable linking issues to an Issue when it is closed?

[Leena Siddamshetty]

workflow property worked atlast but not an acceptable solution to the team who was looking for solution. Thanks @Ivan Lima for your help with this.

[Mark Segall]

Hi @Leena Siddamshetty 

I haven't tried this myself, but you might be able to use issue level security to make closed epics unavailable to the team. The idea would be that you could have an automation trigger when the epic closes that sets the security level to a restricted state that makes the epic unavailable.

The caveat is that the epics will be totally unavailable so if your team needs to review the epics for historical information or reporting, this option won't work.

If this sounds like an option, here are a couple links that may help:

• https://confluence.atlassian.com/adminjiraserver/configuring-issue-level-security-938847117.html
• https://community.atlassian.com/t5/Jira-questions/How-does-exactly-issue-level-security-work/qaq-p/745856
• https://confluence.atlassian.com/jirakb/how-to-set-the-security-level-of-an-issue-based-on-group-membership-726565612.html (RESOLUTION 3 gives an example with automation)

[Leena Siddamshetty]

thank you @Mark Segall but this option won't work as you mentioned Epics wont be available at all to view. Any possible options that can be achieved via workflow or any add on?

[Mark Segall]

Hi @Leena Siddamshetty - To be clear, the completed epics won't be available to view.  All other epics would remain visible.  However, the workflow properties option shared by @Ivan Lima would be a pretty nifty approach if it works for epics.