Documentation for GreenHopper 6.2.x. Documentation for earlier versions of GreenHopper is [available too].

Completing an Epic

Created by Rosie Jameson [Atlassian], last updated on May 09, 2013 2 minute read

An epic captures a large body of work. It is essentially a large user story that can be broken down into a number of smaller stories. It may take several sprints to complete an epic.

In GreenHopper, an epic is simply an issue of type "Epic", which has a name (e.g. "My New Feature") with which other issues can be associated (linked).

Typically, once all of an epic's issues have been completed, you will want to complete the epic. However, you can complete an epic even if some of its issues are incomplete.

Please note:

This page only applies to Scrum boards.

Completing an epic

Please note:

You will need to have the "Edit Issue" permission in the project to which the epic belongs.

To complete an epic,

Log in to JIRA.
Click the Agile link's down-arrow in the top navigation bar, then select your preferred board from the resulting dropdown menu.
Your board will be displayed. Click Plan.
If the Epics panel is not shown at the left of the screen, select Tools > Show Epic Panel.
In the Epics panel, hover over the epic you wish to rename, click the drop-down that appears, and select Mark as done (see Screenshot 1 below). This will set the epic's Epic Status field (see GreenHopper JIRA Configuration) to "Done", but will not affect the epic's workflow or its Status field, and none of the epic's issues will be affected.

Screenshot 1: completing an epic

On this page:

Related pages:

Re-opening an epic

Out of the box, there is no way to re-open an epic. However, you can re-open an epic by following the steps below.

Please note:

You will need to have the "Edit Issue" permission in the project to which the epic belongs.
You will need to have the "JIRA Administrator" global permission.

To re-open an epic,

Add the Epic Status field (see GreenHopper JIRA Configuration) to the View and Edit screens of your project (see custom field context).
View the epic issue in JIRA
Edit the epic issue and set Epic Status to either "To Do" or "In Progress".
(optional) Undo step 1.

16 Comments

user-f6b24
Jan 24, 2013
Nice work, this Epic planning on the Scrum board. It is easy and intuïtive to use.
But what about listing Epics and there child stories once they're complete (both the Epic and the child stories)? I didn't find any way to do this, f.e. using the JIRA Issues search and filter interface... Most of the Epic fields I find are not usable in any way, only Epic Link and Epic Name ware 'enabled' but Epic Name seemed only useful to search for Epic stories itself, not its child stories...
Best regards
Wannes
1. Rosie Jameson [Atlassian]
  Jan 29, 2013
  The Epic Report (available in GreenHopper 6.1.2 and later) may be helpful
  1. user-f6b24
    Jan 29, 2013
    Thanks.
    Unfortunately, we use GreenHopper OnDemand and currently it's at version 6.1.1. Any idea when it will go to 6.1.2? Is this timing somewhere publicly listed/available (I didn't find it at a first glance)?
    BTW: I find it very hard to post any message to this site: on average I need 7 attempts of typing the word appearing in the picture, although I can clearly read and type the word correctly IMHO.
    1. Rosie Jameson [Atlassian]
      Jan 30, 2013
      
      Normally, OnDemand is updated within a week of the release; unfortunately this time it is taking longer (mid Feb) due to some administration changes – which will allow for quicker OnDemand updates in future. Sorry about this – thank you for your patience.
Wolfgang Tank
Feb 01, 2013
Could you explain the reason why epic status is an additional field separate from the workflow status. After marking epics as done I still have to transfer the status manually. It doesn´t make sense for me.
Anonymous
Feb 01, 2013
how do you delete an epic
1. Rosie Jameson [Atlassian]
  Feb 28, 2013
  view the epic issue in JIRA and select More Actions > Delete
Craig Davis
Feb 28, 2013
I've noticed that if the issue is closed, and I try to mark the epic as done, then I get a 'You do not have permission to edit issues in this project.' message. This is fairly non-intuitive and took me awhile to figure out that I needed to reopen the epic and then mark it as done.
1. Rosie Jameson [Atlassian]
  Mar 14, 2013
  Thank you, this does seem to be a problem. Please watch/vote/comment on GHS-7047 - Getting issue details... STATUS
Pat Pigatti
Mar 13, 2013
I concur with Wolfgang Tank's comment above. Why was epic status an additional field separate from the JIRA workflow ticket status? This doesn't make sense to us at all and will cause a lot of confusion. Any thought in just using the workflow ticket status in JIRA instead down the road?
1. RenjithA
  Mar 14, 2013
  The main reason being Epics can include issues from multiple projects and it is hard to manage to Status of Epic based on multiple projects as it can be entirely different based on the Workflow associated with the Epic on those projects.
Gaspar Dias
Apr 08, 2013
Hi,
I'm not able to set "Mark as Done" because it is not visible in my Board. Is this a permission issue?

Kind regards
Gaspar
1. Rosie Jameson [Atlassian]
  Apr 10, 2013
  Possibly, but I'm not sure. Can you please contact http://support.atlassian.com ? Many thanks
Gaspar Dias
Apr 11, 2013
Hi,
It seems that in order to have the "mark as Done" option visible in the epis pannel I need to switch my configurations to "Greenhopper Simplified Workflow" ("Manage boards" ->"configure board"->"Columns" tab. I'm not able to check it rigth now since I have to contact Administrator to do that.
Kind regards
1. Rosie Jameson [Atlassian]
  Apr 12, 2013
  Please see comments on your Answers post – many thanks
Rob Berentsen
May 14, 2013
Where do I find a list of completed Epics and spend time / points on those? When I now mark an epic as 'Done', it disappears from the plan board. And, in the epic report I can only see individual epics instead of a complete status report on my epics.
Is there some additional report I'm missing?