Standard work items

[HQRAZAHS]

Hello Folks. I have one doubt which I wanted to clarify. 

Lets say, I am going to configure a fresh new Jira project. I want to understand which all are the Standard work types? Currently I am aware of multiple work types like Epic, Task, Sub-Task, Feature, Story etc. Are all these standard work types or any of them are customized? I heard somewhere that the Feature is not a standard work type. My aim is to add the standard work types to give a kick start so that everything is simple. 

Secondly, please confirm out of the 2 work types - Epic and Feature, which one has the higher priority, or in other words, which out of the two will stay at higher level?

Looking forward for your advise on the above 2 asks. Thanks in advance.

[Mikael Sandberg]

The default work items in Jira are Epic, Story, Task, Bug, and Sub-task for Jira projects and their availability depends on the template you use to create the project.

Feature is not a default work item, but since you are on the premium plan by default any new item types you create will be under Epic, but you can change the hierarchy so that Feature is a parent of Epic,

[HQRAZAHS]

Thanks for the suggestions @Mikael Sandberg . That brings me under the conclusion that the Feature is not a default work item type. Also, Feature may or may not be at a higher level as compared to Epic, I mean there is no such standard defined.

Just wanted to highlight the existing challenge in my organization and would need further suggestions. My organization has workflow as below, Initiative being at the highest level and subtask at the bottom level.

But the team is currently planning to make a little change in the existing workflow, we are planning to interchange the position of Feature and Epic i.e. Epic to be at a higher level than Feature. So it would be like Initiative --> Epic --> Feature --> Task/Story/Bug --> Subtask.

Question: After we do this change, will it be a large effort for existing teams thereafter? -Meaning pulling things out of Jira and re-uploading if we are only changing levels and not systems, access IDs, etc.
Also please advise if any other unforeseen implications that can arise after doing this hierarchy change?

[Mikael Sandberg]

First off, you cannot change the where epic is in the hierarchy, it will always be on the level one. If you move feature to not be above epic it will be on the same level as task/story/bug. And any changes to the hierarchy settings will affect all Jira projects, you cannot do it for individual projects.

Regarding adding feature under epic and above task/story/bug, you can work around that by using Link work items (it has a new name that I can't remember at the moment...) instead.

[HQRAZAHS]

@Mikael Sandberg I am confused when I see this copilot answer. Can you confirm this AI's answer is wrong?

[Mikael Sandberg]

That Copilot answer is incorrect. As you can see from this screenshot, Epic is grayed out and cannot be removed from the Epic level:

Jira does allow you to rename work items, but if you look at the epic it is noted that you should not edit or delete that work item:

[Karan Sachdev]

Hey @HQRAZAHS

Generally, the Story/Task/Bug are considered standard issue types. This is based on the hierarchy levels.

By default, Epics are level 1, Story/Task/bugs are at level 0 and Subtasks are at -1.

You may navigate to Settings > Work Items and select Work Types from the left menu. All the work types listed at Level 0 are considered standard issue types. Features are usually at level 2, so will be considered as Parent of the Epics.

Thanks!

[HQRAZAHS]

Thanks for the suggestions @Karan Sachdev  . That brings me under the conclusion that the Feature is not a default work item type. Also, Feature may or may not be at a higher level as compared to Epic, I mean there is no such standard defined.

Just wanted to highlight the existing challenge in my organization and would need further suggestions. My organization has workflow as below, Initiative being at the highest level and subtask at the bottom level.

But the team is currently planning to make a little change in the existing workflow, we are planning to interchange the position of Feature and Epic i.e. Epic to be at a higher level than Feature. So it would be like Initiative --> Epic --> Feature --> Task/Story/Bug --> Subtask.

Question: After we do this change, will it be a large effort for existing teams thereafter? -Meaning pulling things out of Jira and re-uploading if we are only changing levels and not systems, access IDs, etc.
Also please advise if any other unforeseen implications that can arise after doing this hierarchy change?

[Karan Sachdev]

Hey @HQRAZAHS

As @Mikael Sandberg already pointed out, Epic always remains at Level 1. We don't have a way to insert a new level between Epic (level 1) and Task/Story/Bug (level 0).

One workaround is to rename the work types Epic to Feature, and Feature to Epic. In this case, all the places where the Epics are displayed by default will show Feature instead, example the project timeline, board backlog etc.

While this was suggested on one of the suggestion tickets related to this topic (ability to create levels between Epic and Story), the comments by other users implied this was not a very suitable approach.

Also refer to this discussion and suggestions related to Maketplace apps that might help: https://community.atlassian.com/forums/Jira-questions/Re-How-to-create-a-hierarchy-Epic-gt-Feature-gt-Story/qaq-p/2118923/comment-id/547443#M547443

Thanks!