SubTasks showing as "Issues without Epics" on Kanban Board...any way around this?

[Lisa Schnettler]

I like using epics as swimlanes for my Kanban board. BUT subtasks always show up as "Issues without Epics" even when their Main Task IS assigned to an Epic. Any way around that?

You can't assign an epic directly to a subtask. And I know I could convert them to full tasks, but many really are not full-fledged tasks but rather pieces.

But with them not showing in the right swimlane, they're easy to lose sight of.

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

[Marc Koppelaar]

I might have found the issue.

If you use Epics as swimlanes on a kanban board and all issuestypes, like; Story, Task, etc.., are linked to a parent.

All seems fine even using quick filters and/or a specific user (myself).

The problem starts when sub-tasks are assigned to other people than the assignee of the parent task.

Then you get the strange result that those sub-tasks end up showing under "Issues without Epics"

[Marc - Devoteam]

I second this

I might have found the issue.

If you use Epics as swimlanes on a kanban board and all issuestypes, like; Story, Task, etc.., are linked to a parent.

All seems fine even using quick filters and/or a specific user (myself).

The problem starts when sub-tasks are assigned to other people than the assignee of the parent task.

Then you get the strange result that those sub-tasks end up showing under "Issues without Epics"

[George Brindeiro]

Make sure you flag this affects you in this issue: https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/JSWCLOUD-16752

[Shweta Singh]

Found the reason. If the Parent (Epic or Story) of the Sub-task is carrying a different status than the Sub-task, it flies to 'Issues Without Epic'.

Example - Sub-task is In Progress but Story is To Do. It doesn't recognize the Story > Epic connection and abandons itself.

[Jennifer McKillop]

Thanks for sharing. This was the issue for me. I had to change the Task to be 'In Progress' to match the Sub-task being 'In Progress' and they all went back into their relevant Epic swimlanes.

[Jennifer McKillop]

Just to add to this, I subsequently discovered it actually happened because someone else using my board came in and turned on the Backlog feature.

This meant all of the issues that had a 'To Do' status were moved to the Backlog and thus, were no longer on the Kanban board (which ended up with only 'In Progress', 'Blocked' and 'Done' columns).

I've turned the 'To Do' column back on, which contains issues with the 'To Do' status, and that fixed the one issue that I couldn't fix using the above method.

I've since applied a different permission scheme to the project, where the 'Administer Projects' permission is now only the Project lead (me).   

[Sandra Goffin]

Hi everyone,

I found a workaround to this one that worked for me, using the "Link" functionality:

- In the sub-task ticket, go to "More" > "Link"

- in the pop-up: select the TASK name/link it is already linked to (not the Epic one)

and this should move your ticket to the corresponding Epic swimlane (where your Task also finds itself)

Hope it works for you too :)

[jndeverteuil]

Hmmmm...

On my JIRA without much modification/plugins, it does show the Sub-tasks under the right Epic swimlane. Sub-tasks always take the Epic of it's Parent task (if there's an existing Epic-Link on the parent).

[Lisa Schnettler]

That's what I would have assumed. is there a setting at the project level that controls that "inheritance"?

[jndeverteuil]

I'm not quite sure, but I've found this open bug in the Atlassian backlog :

https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/JSWSERVER-10683

Could that be your problem?

[Lisa Schnettler]

Hmmm...I don't recall filtering out or hiding parent issues, but I will certainly double-check.  Thanks!

[Joelle_Tegwen]

I know this is old but I found this issue and it helped me understand what was happening. 

When I filter the board for "Only my issues" the Stories/Tasks assigned to other people disappear so my SubTasks show up as "Issues without Epics". 

[George Brindeiro]

This is the JSWSERVER issue for this behavior:

https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/JSWSERVER-11823

I just contacted Jira support to open a related issue for JSWCLOUD

[George Brindeiro]

This is the JSWCLOUD issue for this behavior:

https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/JSWCLOUD-16752