Please clarify the difference between Epic Vs Category

[samantha_sharkov]

Please clarify the difference between Epic Vs Category

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist- · Accepted solution]

We need a bit more detail.

Epic is usually the layer above issue - an Epic contains a collection of issues.

Category is a lot more vague - project category, issue category or epic category?

[Trudy Claspill]

Category might be a reference to the Category field that is a built-in field for Work Management issues.

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

True, that's a fourth category to ask about!

[samantha_sharkov]

I believe @Trudy Claspill is correct. It is a field appearing in the List View of the Work Management board. 

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

Ok, great, we can clarify that.

Epics and Categories have a similar reason to exist - they are for grouping issues together for some reason.

Where they differ is that Epics are primarily an Agile artefact, used for grouping together a large pile of stories from across your entire issue tracking system(s), all the stories that need to be considered together to achieve a single goal (yes, they should span systems when you've not yet managed to get everyone on to the same one properly)

Categories are much the same - you're grouping things together because they have a strong relationship.  But, not because they are part of the same goal, more because they have a lot in common.

To use a recent example and hugely over-simplify:

• Epic: Organise Team-23
• Category: Team events

The Epic can now be closed, people have attended, survived, suffered Team-'flu, done the work on contacting leads and and and.  But it's still in the same category as the last 20 Team events.

[samantha_sharkov]

Excellent example, @Nic Brough -Adaptavist- ! Thank you very much. With Epics, I can go to any Epic view and see all the related issues. With Category, there is no way to do the same in Jira Work Management, correct?

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

Correct, the category is more like a field than an Epic grouping.  So while there's no "show me this category", you can of course search for it - JQL (and the basic search, and a lot of the reports) let you say "list the issues in this category".