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Documentation for GreenHopper 6.2.x. Documentation for earlier versions of GreenHopper is [available too].
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.
An epic can span more than one project, if multiple projects are included in the board to which the epic belongs.
Epics only apply to Scrum boards.
Go to Plan mode to see a list of epics at the left of the screen. Drag-and-drop epics to re-order them. Click an epic's name to view all the issues belonging to that epic, across all sprints:
Screenshot: viewing an epic in Plan mode
You can also view an epic issue in JIRA to see a list of the stories (issues) it contains:
Screenshot: viewing an epic in JIRA
You can also use the JQL Epic Link field to search for an epic's issues — see the JIRA JQL documentation for details.
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49 Comments
Mikael Glentoft
Nov 26, 2012Since an epic is a really large story and is usually broken down into smaller stories, I see two ways of working with epics.
I would like to add stories to it, only - not tasks since they goes into the stories.
Any thoughts about this?
Regards,
MIkael
Yuen-Chi Lian
Nov 28, 2012Given that Sprint backlog items should contain enough details and filled up before the next Sprint starts and modifying the Sprint backlog in the midst of it is not encouraged, yes, I don't think an Epic issue should be added into the Sprint backlog but Product backlog.
Yuen-Chi Lian
Nov 28, 2012Deleted
Anonymous
Dec 17, 2012Any chance you will add epics to show on the work page too? I want to be able to see which epic stories belong too, much like you can see this on the planning page.
Rosie Jameson [Atlassian]
Dec 18, 2012This is likely to be something we will work on in the foreseeable future.
Blake McMillan
Aug 07, 2013This would be awesome...especially for Kanban. I'm having problems with the traceability between epics and their stories on the Kanban board.
michelts
Jan 17, 2013Is there a way to export a planned sprint as csv?
Rosie Jameson [Atlassian]
Jan 29, 2013Yes – if you are using GreenHoper 6.1.2 or later, you can select the issues, right-click and choose View in Issue Navigator, then export to CSV, Excel, etc.
michelts
Jan 29, 2013Is there plan to upgrade OnDemand GreenHoper? It seems to be 6.1.1.
I already saw this recommendation in the docs but it doesn't work here, probably due the outdated version.
Rosie Jameson [Atlassian]
Jan 29, 2013At this stage it is intended that OnDemand will be updated within the next 3 weeks (this is much longer than usual due to administration changes, but future GreenHopper updates to OnDemand should happen far more quickly). Thanks for your patience.
Anonymous
Jan 24, 2013how can i get all issues related to an epic?
In planningboard i only see "active" issues (backlog or active sprint) but what about the closed issues related to the epic? There is only a total count of all issues, it would be nice if this number links to all related issues.
Anonymous
Feb 11, 2013Since the "upgrade" to do Epics completely differently, we seem to have lost a lot of functionality. Why can't we see a list of stories inside the epic ticket anymore? Why was the decision made to use a different field for the Epic/Story link?
Rosie Jameson [Atlassian]
Feb 12, 2013Please watch upcoming releases for the ability to view issues from within the epic.
Anonymous
Feb 21, 2013This now works with 6.1.3
Anonymous
Feb 01, 2013I want to rename the issue type Epic to something else. Similarly, I want to rename "Story" and "Sub-task" types to have other names. Is it possible or would doing that screw up something in Greenhopper/JIRA ? In our process the names would be
Epic -> Card
Story -> Blueprint
Sub-task -> Work Item
I would probably need to change some custom field names too (ie wherever there is "Epic" to change the name into "Card" instead). Is that permissible also?
ClassicVibe
Jun 24, 2013If the "EPIC" functionality (for instance) in the system were tied to an Icon, or some subtext or the like, this could be accomplished. I am looking for the same functionality. I have to use the EPIC issue type to accomplish what the business needs process-wise, but the user would do much better if the could create an issue with a type more familiar to them (like "thingy the business wants"). I believe this functionality will come to light somehow, soon. I am surprised it is not already in place (I'm still looking), but what do I know.
Paul JB Matthews
Feb 15, 2013Why can't you use Epics with Kanban boards?
I note that on a Scrum board Epics are all managed from on the board but it seems a little odd you can't manage Epics from outside the board?
We are using OnDemand and can't see the children of an epic when you view the detail of an epic (as shown on the first image of this page?!?!)
Thanks
Paul
AH - Reading the release notes says this is available in 6.1.3... Nice.
Anonymous
Feb 19, 2013The handling for Epics in Greenhopper has changed. Before this change we added Subtasks (Technical task) to our Epics. How can we plan in a sprint a Subtask (Technical task) of an Epic( or the hole Epic)? It's even not possible to change the issue type for a Technical task to a Story within an Epic. Is there a migration plan available or whats your approach? Thanks for your advice.
Rosie Jameson [Atlassian]
Feb 19, 2013Can you please contact http://support.atlassian.com ? Thank you
Yuen-Chi Lian
May 28, 2013You can. Have you tried More Actions > Convert to Issue?
I reckon that the way you used Epic (and having Technical tasks in it) wasn't appropriate. I doubt GH will do a migration plan for this and I suggest you to do the "Convert to Issue" one by one (if they're still open).
Note: I'm not a GH dev.
Guillaume
Feb 20, 2013Hello,
Witch version of JIRA do you use ? Beceause my version are 5.0.6 for JIRA and 6.1.3 for GreenHopper but I don't see the Issues in Epic on the classic JIRA View...
I have an other question : is it possible to add sub tasks to an Epic task and view theses task on the GreenHopper Board ?
Thanks for your help,
Have a good day !
Rosie Jameson [Atlassian]
Feb 22, 2013This should be visible in GreenHopper 6.1.3; can you please contact http?/support.atlassian.com?
Generally we would recommend that you add issues to an epic, then add sub-tasks to the issues.
Robert Mikuszewski
Mar 01, 2013Hi,
Is there a way to filter epics in the plan mode? We usually work with projects consisting of many epics and it pretty soon becomes unconvenient to work with a very long list of epics. It seems that there is no way to do it now.
It would be great to have something like quick filters for backlog. Is such functionality planned for GH in the foreseeable future?
Thanks for your help, Robert
Rosie Jameson [Atlassian]
Mar 03, 2013Hi Robert, you may like to watch/vote/comment on GHS-6949 - Getting issue details... STATUS
user-40563
Mar 28, 2013Is there a reason that Epics only apply to Scrum boards?
Maybe I just misunderstand what Epics do. I think of an Epic as a "container of smaller tickets" which would be useful to have on a Kanban board too. Are Epics something more than a container of smaller tickets?
Rosie Jameson [Atlassian]
Apr 10, 2013Epics are kind of "master" stories, and are used in up-front planning of the kind that doesn't typically take place in a Kanban team.
On a Kanban board, it may be helpful to use issues and sub-tasks?
Pål Brattberg
May 28, 2013Why would a Kanban team not do up-front planning? As you know: "Planning is everything, plans are nothing."
We use a Kanban-flow but still would like to represent our long-term planning/ideas in JIRA/GreenHopper (as we did when we used Scrum), but now that's not possible any more. Would love it if the Kanban- and Scrum-boards were more aligned in terms of capabilities.
Geoffrey Emery
Apr 10, 2013If a epic can be on more then one project shouldn't the epic show up on the plan board for each project even if its not in that project? Otherwise I would need to be able to assign the ticket to multiple epics. which i cant
Rosie Jameson [Atlassian]
Apr 12, 2013Sorry, I'm not sure I fully understand the question. Epics are board-specific (not project-specific), if that helps. For more info can you please contact http://support.atlassian.com ? Many thanks
Geoffrey Emery
May 02, 2013"An epic can span more than one project, if multiple projects are included in the board to which the epic belongs." You can't assign the same epic link to another projects task. Thats the issue i have. You name the epics the same . For instance project 1 has a "green hopper" epic link and project two has "green Hopper" epic link. But there is no way for me to link those two project to one single epic using the epic link.
isaackassies
May 02, 2013We work with main stories for the non-tech explanation and discussion. Then our developers add subtask(s) for the actual tasks they will need to do. The subtasks are used for all the time reporting, not the main stories. Now I saw the addition of the epic which looks nice to use. but it seems that when you have have a story in an epic, the subtask are not connected to the epic in any way. No overview of the hours spent or estimated on the epic (via the subtasks), only the main tasks, which do not have estimations or time logs on them.
Am I missing something?
Rosie Jameson [Atlassian]
May 03, 2013You may like to watch/vote/comment on GHS-8181 - Getting issue details... STATUS
isaackassies
May 03, 2013Thanks Rosie. Watch and prey.
Kim Dinh
May 02, 2013I want the ability to create epics within epics, as the main epic can be broken down to smaller epics - it's my way to organize my user stories together by a certain area of the application. Could not find a way to do this - can it be done?
Tom Kotecki
May 03, 2013Hi Kim,
This is not currently supported natively by GreenHopper, although we may revisit it in the future. You can emulate this behaviour by using labels or components.
Cheers
Tom Kotecki
Product Manager, GreenHopper
Greg
Aug 07, 2013In my organisation we run big projects with many epic hierarchies (epics within epics) in a project. This all worked OK-ish in old green hopper but I am very concerned now that even this functionality has been removed. I was hoping that the new GH would support epic hierarchies and also add to the old functionality for example with usability features like being able to navigate the hierarchies in a tree view or supporting multiple hierarchies - e.g. epic hierarchies and theme hierarchies, or points, burn aggregations through the hierarchies. Very disappointed to hear that Atlassian have taken a step back with the product... maybe its not supposed to be an enterprise product. I would be interested to hear back from product management why this has happened.
Kim Dinh
May 03, 2013Thanks Tom for your quick response!
julie miyasato
May 30, 2013Can you assign a story to more than one Epic?
Rosie Jameson [Atlassian]
May 31, 2013No – you may perhaps want to consider using components to achieve something similar?
Rick Herrick
Jun 05, 2013Am I correct that the hierarchy works like this:
I would like to be able to have tasks in there:
Rosie Jameson [Atlassian]
Jun 07, 2013You are correct, the hierarchy currently has three levels. You may like to log a feature request at http://jira.atlassian.com/browse/GHS
Geoffrey Emery
Jun 07, 2013You can also tag a epic to make a "Feature" that crosses products/projects. The filter your epics by this tag in the explorer.
Amos Benninga
Jun 11, 2013Can I add a story to an Epic outside of the plan mode?
For example- we may create a search (filter) and then edit a specific story and want to associate it with the epic.
Rosie Jameson [Atlassian]
Jun 11, 2013Yes – please see Adding an Issue to an Epic
Frank Pellitteri
Jul 11, 2013Is there a plan to be able to work with Epics on a Kanban board?
Frederic KIHM
Jul 18, 2013In plan mode, is there a way to make Epic not related to a specific version to disappear so that we can work version by version without seeing all Epics?
Martyn Chapman
Jul 31, 2013With regard to "Yes – if you are using GreenHoper 6.1.2 or later, you can select the issues, right-click and choose View in Issue Navigator, then export to CSV, Excel, etc."
Could someone explain how I "select the issues" in my planning board. I have dozens and can't see how I would select all items in the list. Thanks!
Brian Zoller
Jul 31, 2013We are using the Two Dimensional Filter Statistics gadget in the JIRA dashboard with JIRA 5.2.9 and Greenhopper 6.1.6. When we choose Epic/Theme for the Y-axis, the gadget filter finds the stories, enhancements and defects with the column Epic/Theme set to that epic. Those tickets under the epic are actually setting the column Epic Link to that epic, but the Epic/Theme column is blank.
Is there an easy way to get Two Dimensional Filter Statics to look at the column Epic Link so that our dashboards contain meaningful information? Alternatively, would it be possible for Greenhopper to set both Epic/Theme and Epic Link when linking tickets to the epic? As it stands now, the dashboard only shows the epics themselves, but is not picking up any tickets under the epic.
Brian Zoller
Aug 02, 2013I found that I can link tickets to epics in Greenhopper, search for the issues with Epic Link = <ticket #>, and then do a bulk update on those results to set Epic/Theme to that ticket number. However, this is a tedious process when there are a large number of epics, and this step should not be necessary if Greenhopper and the dashboard page were compatible with each other. Is there a solution to my other question, making the dashboard Two Dimensional Filter Statistics use the Epic Link column instead of the Epic/Theme column?