Epics in JIRA is an issue type that is used when there is a need to capture a large work body. It is usually a large user story that can be decomposed into smaller number of stories or project modules. It requires several sprints to complete such a large story or epic. In JIRA, when multiple projects are added in the board to which the epic belongs, the epic may span one or more than one project.
In this tutorial, we are going to learn in detail about Epic as an issue type in the JIRA tool with examples.
How To Create An Epics In JIRA?
In the last tutorial, we had created an issue in JIRA, in a similar way Epic can be created in JIRA by following the below steps.
- On the main JIRA screen either click on create button or press C key on the keyboard. This will open a dialogue box.
- Alternatively, direct create Epic JIRA link can be procured on backlog page as shown in the below screenshot. For this on the Agile tab, click on the link “View on Board”, this will open Backlog screen where on the left-hand side EPICS frame will be visible. Here all existing Epic JIRAswill be visible and new Epic JIRA can be created following the steps below.
- On the dialogue box, select the project from dropdown menu for which this epic need to be created.
- From the issue type dropdown menu select “Epic” to create an Epic.
- Enter the required epic name and the summary title.
- Click on the create button to create an Epic.
A small dialogue box will be popped up displaying the confirmation for the creation of Epic as shown below in the screenshot.
Below screenshot demonstrates an EPIC JIRA when initial details such as epic name, summary, etc. are entered into JIRA which will create a unique issue identifier number (here MFP-3).
How to Edit or Rename an Epics in JIRA?
Below are the steps to edit or rename an epic JIRA.
- On the Agile link’s down arrow in the top navigation bar, select the option “View on Board”, it will open up the Backlog page.
- On the backlog page left-hand side, all epic JIRA will be visible.
- Choose an epic JIRA and click on the dropdown arrow. It will display the options to change the color theme, edit the epic name, and view epic details and mark epic as “Done”.
Epic can be renamed by clicking on the edit name link and providing the new name there itself. Alternatively click on the view epic details which will open up the complete epic JIRA and there epic can be renamed as shown in the below screenshot.
Further in the epic JIRA, we can add description, attach required documents, add comments, assign it to the team member and add participants, etc. and let it look complete with all initial known details in one place.
How To Add An Issue To An Epics In JIRA?
We can create an issue in JIRA through the below steps.
- On the Agile link’s down arrow in the top navigation bar, select the option “View on Board”, it will open up the Backlog page.
- On the backlog page left-hand side, all epic JIRA will be visible.
- Choose an epic JIRA and click the triangle at the left of the epic name to display the epic details.
- It will display epic JIRA details as shown below.
- Click on the “Create issue in epic” link to create an issue in epic.
Alternatively, within the epic JIRA under the tab “Issues in Epic”, click on the “+” link, it open a dialogue box (shown below) which is the same as that procured in above step 5.
From the dropdown menu, select issue type which could be story, task, etc. and enter the summary details to create the issue with a unique issue identifier (here MFP-4). The below screenshot shows that the issue MFP-4 has been linked to main epic JIRA MFP-3.
How To Remove An Issue From An Epic In JIRA?
Below are the steps to remove the issue from epics in JIRA.
- On the Agile link’s down arrow in the top navigation bar, select the option “View on Board”, it will open up the Backlog page.
- On the backlog page left-hand side, all epic JIRA will be visible.
- On the Backlog page, drag the issue onto the Issues without epics section at the bottom of the Epics panel as shown in the screenshot below.
- Issue MFP-4 will get removed successfully.
How To Complete An Epic In JIRA?
Below are the steps to complete an epic JIRA.
- On the Agile link’s down arrow in the top navigation bar, select the option “View on Board”, it will open up the Backlog page.
- On the backlog page left-hand side, all epic JIRA will be visible.
- Choose the epic and click on the triangular drop-down menu which will display the option as “Mark as Done” as shown in the below screenshot.
This will change the epic status field as “Done”.
How To Re-open An Epic In JIRA?
Search open the epic JIRA and do the following steps to reopen the issue.
- View the epic issue in JIRA
- Edit and the Epic JIRA Status to either “To Do” or “In Progress”.
How To View An Epic In JIRA?
One way to search and open the epic JIRA is to enter the issue reference number on the search bar present at the top right corner of all JIRA web pages as shown in the screenshot below.
Alternatively, click on the board where the link to that particular issue JIRA is visible, it will open up the complete description of the issue JIRA.
How To Link An Issue To An Epic In JIRA?
Below are the steps to link an issue with epic JIRA.
- Open the epic JIRA details.
- From the dropdown menu “More”, select Link as shown in the screenshot below.
- It will open up a dialogue box asking to add the issue with this epic as shown in the below screenshot.
- Enter the issue reference number in which you want to get it linked with the epic.
- You can add the required comments if needed.
- Click on the link button to complete the linkage.
By doing so, we will be able to link back the issue MFP-4, which we had removed earlier in this tutorial. But this time it will appear under Issue Links heading in the main epic JIRA.
Today we learned about Epic as issue type in JIRA tool with examples and how to manage epics in a Scrum project. If you have any questions or want to share your experience then use the below the comments section.
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