How to create an epic in Jira
Jack Wallen explains what a Jira Epic is and how you can create one to make managing large projects easier.
In the Jira realm, an epic is a large piece of work that can be broken down into several smaller parts, often called issues in Jira. Epics can include multiple teams working on multiple projects, can be tracked on different boards, and are generally deployed over a series of sprints.
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Epics typically focus on agile teams and projects where efficiency is key. Think of epics as general business requirements that are too complicated and large to be completed in a single sprint. Epics can be a great way to better manage issues for much larger projects, and I’m going to show you how to create one.
There are three different ways to create epics: roadmap, backlog, and global create. I’ll walk you through creating an epic from a roadmap as most projects will rely heavily on this feature.
What you need to create an epic in Jira
To create your first epic, you need a Jira account with roadmap enabled. Make sure to log into your Jira account and either create a new development project for testing or open a previous project that contains a sprint.
That’s all you need. let’s get epic
How to create your first epic
After logging into your Jira account, navigate to the project in question and click on the global “Create” button in the top toolbar. In the resulting window (Figure A), make sure you select Epic as the issue type, and then fill in the rest of the information.
Figure A
Once you create the epic, it will appear in your roadmap (Figure B).
Figure B
After creating the epic, the next step is to add child expenses. Here’s how:
- Stay in the roadmap view.
- Hover over the epic and when the + appears click on it (Figure C).
- Type the name of the sub-issue and press Enter on your keyboard.
- Add more child issues until you are satisfied.
Figure C
How to enable epic panel in backlogs
After creating your first epic, you may want to enable the epic panel in the backlogs view. To do this, click Backlog in the left navigation panel and then click the Epic dropdown menu to the right of your profile picture. From the drop-down list (Figure D), click the Epic Panel power switch until it is in the on position.
Figure D
With the created Epic Panel (Figure E) you can now create epics much faster.
Figure E
In the Epic panel, you can click an epic and then create related child issues. As you create each child issue, you’ll find that they are automatically tagged with the epic you selected (Figure F).
Figure F
Another very cool thing you can do is link epics. In the roadmap view, select an issue in an epic, then click the Link button above the In Progress dropdown. From the drop-down menu, click Link problem. In the pane that appears, click Check for issues, and then select the issue you want to associate (Figure G).
Figure G
When you’re done, click Link and your issues are now linked.
And that’s the most important thing about creating epics in Jira. It’s a bit of a confusing feature at first, but once you get the hang of it, you’ll realize just how handy Epics can be.
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